The Ties That Bind
by hbcooper
Summary: What if Rogue had taken Havok's suggestion and hunted down her villainous former lover? Following in the footprints of the Magneto solo series, Rogue and the Scarlet Witch enlist the help of Polaris, Quicksilver, and a reluctant Gambit to bring the Master of Magnetism to justice. This story assumes the events of Axis did not happen. Romy.
1. Chapter 1

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's note: Canon really bit me in the rear on this one. Just when you get a good idea, someone decides the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver aren't Magneto's kids anymore. To get a good sense of the timeline for this story, let's say rather than the Red Skull's lackeys kidnapping Rogue and Wanda and taking them to Genosha in Uncanny Avengers Vol 1, the ladies enlist a team to go after Magneto instead. Like the synopsis said, this assumes Axis never happened. For mature audiences only all the way through, but to be safe I will flag the especially smutty chapters.

**Chapter One**

"Well, ain't this one sad-ass family reunion…?"

Remy LeBeau, the mutant thief Gambit, barged his way into Serval Industries' spacious conference room, the room's decor fraught with the dark wood and stainless steel that had become the cliche of every modern office building. His entrance had halted an extremely heated conversation and Remy's dark eyes took in the troubled group of mutants frozen angrily in mid-sentence by his interruption.

His X-Factor squad leader Lorna Dane, the mistress of magnetism Polaris, was in private conference with her erstwhile siblings: Remy and Lorna's teammate Pietro Maximoff, code-named Quicksilver, and Wanda Maximoff, the reality warping Avenger known as the Scarlet Witch. The three mutants were the children of the sometimes scourge, sometimes savior of mutant kind, Magneto. Wanda and Lorna were seated at a lustrously monstrous table that filled half of the room's space, and Pietro, whose mutant powers included the gift of super speed and eternal impatience, paced laps around the room.

The Scarlet Witch squared her shoulders and lifted her chin defiantly, her eyes making Remy's blood run cold. "Your presence is neither requested nor required. We are here to meet with Lorna and Pietro. The rest of X-Factor is..."

"_We_?" Remy questioned as he shot a confused look toward Lorna. "Like, you referring to yourself with the royal 'we' now? 'Cause you the only Avenger I see, cherie…"

"Now, hold on, Wanda…" Lorna leaned forward, placing her hands on the polished surface of the conference table. Her long hair, the shade a shocking green, brushed the tabletop and reflected the color across it in a neon shimmer. "This is my home, my team. Though I don't necessarily agree with you, I do understand your request to keep the others members of X-Factor out of this. But Remy has a great deal of experience here, not to mention somewhat of a vested interest." She caught Gambit's eyes and slightly nodded towards the windows of the spacious room. Gambit started in surprise. Standing at the wall of floor to ceiling windows with her back turned to the group was his former lover Anna Raven, the X-Man turned Avenger Rogue. She had clearly accompanied her teammate Wanda as part of whatever meeting Remy had just walked in on, but the girl hadn't made a sound or even moved since he had entered the room. Remy mouthed a silent 'What the fuck?' to Lorna and she merely shrugged. He took a tentative step towards Rogue, but Lorna held up a hand and shook her head ever-so-slightly. Remy, choosing to ignore Lorna, looked again towards his somewhat ex-flame.

"Rogue! It's been a while, chere. Come on over and be sociable." Silence greeted him and she continued to stand with her back to them, hugging herself. The hood of her green tunic costume was pulled up over her head, and she seemed smaller than usual to Remy, like she was trying to blend into the wall or disappear into the floor. He fought the urge to stride across the room and whip that stupid hood down, kiss her square on the mouth. He sighed, annoyed at their 'ex' status, still mildly embarrassed that he hadn't noticed her standing highlighted against the windows. _Some master thief_, he thought. It hurt him more than he wanted to admit that their relationship had apparently deteriorated to the point that she wouldn't even give him the courtesy of a greeting. He ran the last conversation they had through his mind and it had been tense, no doubt about it, but he didn't think they had left things badly enough for her to give him the cold shoulder.

Pietro stopped his pacing and came to stand next to Wanda. "Can we please get on with this? Though it pains me to admit it, Lorna's right. Gambit's experience in this area is much more extensive than most of your current teammates, Wanda. Besides, one of his more annoying qualities is persistence. It would be pointless not to include him now that he knows we're all here. He would just listen in somehow, dangle down the air-conditioning vents or hack the security cameras or something equally annoying. We'll save time and irritation by just including him in the discussion."

Crossing her arms under her chest, Wanda leaned back in her chair. "Very well. Lorna, if you would please bring your teammate up to speed on our current mission?" She leveled those icy eyes at him again and a snarky retort bubbled up in Remy's throat, but Lorna stood slightly and placed a hand on his wrist. _Mission_. He sure as hell didn't like the sound of that.

"Take a seat, Remy, and I'll begin."

"Use small words…" Pietro quipped and resumed his pacing. Remy bit his tongue._ Damn, Magneto's kids are pretty uppity, makes you want to slap them. _Lorna wasn't as bad as the twins, but Remy had been her teammate long enough to have witnessed some of her holier-than-thou moments. Despite having nearly identical powers to her famously villainous father, Lorna had only found out she was Papa Magneto's child recently. _Nature versus nurture_, he wondered? Was extreme arrogance an inherited trait? There were the Summers brothers after all…he brushed the thought away and sat on the edge of the table close to Lorna, his back turned slightly to the Scarlet Witch.

"As you know, our father is a wanted man," Lorna folded her hands in front of her. "He's always been on the government's radar, but since Utopia and his break with Scott's team, he has gone completely rogue…er…renegade." Remy smiled crookedly at Lorna's Freudian slip. He winked at her and she scowled. He smiled a little broader and looked up towards Rogue, opening his mouth to say something flirty to her to get her attention. "Don't…" Lorna whispered hotly.

"What d'you mean don't?" he hissed back. "What the hell's going on here? Is she part of this discussion or not?" He leaned on an arm towards Lorna and glared around the room at the other mutants. He was happy as hell to hear that Magneto was once again showing his true colors, he just wished it had happened before the old man had sweet talked his way into Rogue's panties. Though she had broken things off with the villain well before this currently messy situation, her presence here today was slightly problematic. If Rogue had volunteered for this train wreck of a mission, maybe things weren't as finished between her and 'the Master of Magnetism' as Remy had hoped.

Thinking of Rogue and Magneto together still made Remy's stomach bottom out. He knew Magneto was an old itch the girl had needed to scratch, but part of him wished he had been wrong about Rogue's long standing infatuation with the infamous villain. Frustrated at the time with the status of his relationship with Rogue, Remy had ended things, practically giving her permission to be with the other man. Their love, for better or worse, had always bordered on the dramatic, but Remy had meant it when he told her that he had never loved another woman like he loved her. Now that she was single again, he had been looking for the chance to prove that declaration.

Lorna met his scathing stare and raised one green eyebrow in warning. Remy leaned back in a huff. He knew he was in the room at her behest, she could just as easily kick his ass out. "As I was saying," Lorna continued, "he's out of control, and not just his usual megalomaniac world domination shtick. He has taken on the role of mutant messiah in a much more cold-blooded fashion, vigilante style, hunting and murdering individuals he deems to have wronged our kind somehow."

"Wronged?" Remy furrowed his brows. "Like, how?"

Wanda's steely voice caused him to turn. "His first targets were humans who had murdered mutants, perpetrators of hate crimes, if you will. According to SHIELD, his latest maneuvers involved the slaughter and torture of the surviving members of the Marauders," she said slowly. "From what I understand you don't really need an explanation as to how they've wronged mutant kind."

Bile rose in Remy's throat, leaving the faint taste of vomit behind. He knew all too well the many sins of the Marauders and more that a few mutants gleefully threw his forced associations with the group in his face. "And who the hell appointed bucket-head judge, jury and executioner for mutant kind?" Remy yelled angrily. "And you, Ms. "No more mutants" Maximoff," he jabbed a furious finger at Wanda, "where t'hell d'you get off…" Lorna's arm shot out and pushed his hand down to the table.

"Watch your mouth, Wanda," she growled, magnetic energy crackling around her and causing the hairs on Remy's arm to stand on end. "Remy's right. All of us in this room have done horrible, nasty things we're not proud of. We all have blood on our hands, none more vividly than our father. Who is he to judge when his own past is so completely fucked up?"

Continuing his frenzied pacing, Pietro's voice seemingly rang from all corners of the room. "I am not in the mood for an ethics debate, as we five may be some of the least qualified people to participate. I think Gambit is caught up. Please get to the point of you and Rogue's visit, Wanda, not that I can't guess what it is you want from us."

Wanda nodded, but Remy's eyes sought out Rogue again. Why was she here? Like Pietro, Remy could make a good guess. She and Wanda had come alone, meaning they were probably doing this mission, whatever it actually was, off the Avengers' books. Did she still care that much for Magneto that she would risk her life and her coveted place on the world famous team to, what? Bring the man in?

"Yes, Pietro," Wanda began as Gambit pulled himself back to the discussion. "Our father's recent activities have placed him on the Avengers' to-do-list and they want him dispensed with quickly. However, Alex has bargained with the rest of the team's leadership. They do not want a repeat of what happened with the X-Men on Utopia, and would like to avoid a full-scale conflict if possible. We have been given a short window in which to bring him in peacefully, if we can. If we fail, the full might of the combined teams will be unleashed upon him."

Remy snorted. "Bring him in peacefully? You're joking, right?"

"Gambit!" Lorna scowled at him and Pietro skidded to a halt between the two of them.

"He's absolutely right, oh-sisters-of-mine," he intoned sarcastically. "Do you really think the sight of his darling children will suddenly show him the error of his ways? That you can throw yourself at his feet and beg for mercy on behalf of mutant kind? Or that the vision of loveliness that was his latest floozy will make him pine for what could have been?" Pietro gestured angrily towards the still silent Rogue.

Remy jumped to his feet. "Watch it," he barked, getting chin to chin with Pietro, his fists balled at his sides.

"Pietro…" Wanda's tone warned her brother from making any further comments.

Lorna stood and shoved her way between the two men. "All right, let's take a step back here, boys." She pushed hard on their chests and Gambit sat back on the table, his red on black eyes glowing furiously. Floozy? What the fuck did Pietro know? For most of her adult life, Rogue's mutant powers were uncontrollable and deadly. Even though she had a body that was built for sin, she had only even kissed a few people in her lifetime, let alone been intimate with them. As much as it hurt him to admit it, the girl should be allowed to hump her way up and down the eastern seaboard if she wanted to, make up for a little lost time. As far as he knew she hadn't, but to call her a floozy was really shitty. Remy sighed and looked towards Rogue again. No reaction. Dammit, she still hadn't moved an inch. What was going on here? He tore his eyes from her to Pietro who had taken a step back and had smugly crossed his arms.

"So, let me get this straight," Pietro sneered, "you're fabulous plan, Wanda, is that we're supposed to hunt him down, which mind you always turns out so well with him, and, as one big happy family, which apparently now includes his ex-girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend, convince him to turn himself in? Just us? No Captain America or Thor, or extra X-Men? Just us? What a fabulous plan, sister. A master strategist as always." As arrogant and irritating as Pietro could be and was, Remy had to admit he had a point. Magneto was stubborn as hell. Best case scenario, they were going to get their asses kicked.

"Despite his somewhat zealous exterior, our father is a logical man," Wanda pleaded somewhat unconvincingly, "We appeal to that sense of logic, that he can do more harm than good for mutants by continuing down this path he has set for himself. He will see the reason in our argument and come back with us to face jury of his peers."

Pietro laughed, a strangled high-pitched laugh that caused Lorna to step back from him. "Logical man? Has our father been replaced by some sort of parallel universe doppelganger trapped in our dimension? Or perhaps another clone? Or maybe…" Pietro's eyes lit up as he caught sight of the silent Rogue. "Or maybe this is a trap? Is that it? Oh, Wanda, you are truly his worst child! Now I get why Rogue is here! With her, the Avengers _are_ all here, aren't they? She absorbed all of their powers again, sucked them right up. Death comes in a pretty package, the old man will never know what hit him!"

Wanda sat bolt upright and looked worriedly in Rogue's direction. A puzzled Remy thought he saw anguish in the Witch's eyes. "Pietro, that's not why Rogue is here…" she started but Pietro cut her off.

"Why the hell else is she here? None of us seriously believe our father loved her enough for her words to sway him from his chosen path, even she knows she was just a voluptuous distraction. If she hasn't come equipped with a full arsenal of Avenger's powers what else is she good for? Her own powers aren't useful enough in a fight unless someone's close enough for her to drain dry…" Remy stood again and started swearing under his breath, his mutant power charging his gloves, his fists appearing to glow with pent up kinetic energy just itching to light up one smart-mouthed speedster. "…and I doubt you two get along well enough for her to be your moral support. Or are you friends now, Wanda? BFFs? Is she the newest member of your cheering squad? I notice your usual lap dog Simon isn't here, is she his replacement?"

A strangled cry escaped Wanda's lips as she stood. Remy took his eyes off Pietro for a split second to turn her way. In his peripheral vision, almost too fast for him to perceive, Remy saw Rogue finally move. She turned and in the same motion fired red blasts of energy from underneath her hood, catching the surprised Quicksilver squarely in the chest and cracking him into the opposite wall. Remy vaulted over the table and ran towards Rogue, a screaming Wanda hot on his heels. Lorna knelt to examine the dazed and sputtering Pietro.

"Chere!" Remy reached out for Rogue, but she turned back towards the wall of windows. Cocking a fist back she smashed through one, shattering it to pieces. Remy backpedaled into Wanda, shielding them both from the shards of broken glass with his ever-present trench coat. The concussive force knocked the pair to the ground and Remy turned his face towards Rogue in time to see her fly out of the gaping hole and head skyward. He grabbed a stunned Wanda roughly by the arm. "Y'got about one second t'tell me what the hell you've done to that girl," he hissed venomously.

Pietro shook himself off and shoved Lorna's caring hands away. He sprang at Remy and Wanda. "Get your hands off my sister!" He punched at Gambit but despite his impressive speed he was again thwarted as Remy dodged the hit and rolled to a crouching position with a handful of glowing cards at the ready. "That's impossible! You're not that fast, LeBeau," Pietro spat at him, turning to make another go.

"No, not impossible Pietro. Merely improbable," Wanda said in a low voice. Both men turned to her. She was still on the floor in a ring of shattered glass, but had raised a hand, the tell-tale signature of her mutant probability altering powers evident.

Remy, suddenly unable to move, felt the blood freeze in his veins, saw Pietro's jaw clench in a similar manner. They had both experienced magnetism controlling the iron in their blood on enough occasions to know Lorna had also deployed her power. "That's enough," Lorna boomed, her control of magnetic energy holding the struggling men at bay. "Are you going to behave or do I have to send you to your rooms like children?" Remy could plainly see the anger on her face, but she also looked just as confused as he felt by what had happened. He nodded the best he could and reclaimed the kinetic energy from the playing cards in his hand. She released her hold on him, but kept Pietro immobilized. "Sit!" she barked at Remy, who immediately grabbed the nearest chair. "Wanda, I think you owe us an explanation here. That was weird, even for Rogue."

Wanda remained on the floor, Lorna towering over her. She curled her legs underneath her and leaned heavily on one arm, turning her face towards the floor. "I suppose I do. I had hoped this would be resolved by now, but unfortunately…"

"Wanda…" Lorna warned.

"Yes. You're right. My apologies." She took a deep breath. "I assume you all know what Rogue did recently? Against the Celestial?" Remy and Lorna nodded while Pietro remained frozen in place. Despite the situation, Remy's heart swelled with pride in his chest. It wasn't every day you saw the woman you loved fight back a god intent on destroying the Earth, using her power to combine the strength of nearly every superhero on the planet. On television no less. He DVR-ed it. "When the battle was over," Wanda continued, "Rogue was overwhelmed. It was too much for her, all of the powers and personalities, she was drowning in them, couldn't let them go. I wanted to help, so I…" Her voice faltered. "I used my chaos magic to allow her to release the powers, but…something went wrong."

The color rose in Remy's face. "Keep going Wanda," Lorna released Pietro and laid a hand on Remy's shoulder.

Wanda took in a shaky breath. "Rogue has always had difficulty with Simon's powers. Something to do with his ionic structure, his unique physiology…" She halted and bit her lip. Remy's stomach bottomed out again and the vomit taste crept back up his throat. He wanted her to stop, to scream at what he feared was coming. Flight. Super-strength. Cyclops-rip-off lasers. None of these powers were Rogue's.

"Wanda," Pietro moved softly towards the Scarlet Witch and knelt beside her, his earlier animosity replaced by brotherly concern. "Wanda, where is Simon? Those were his powers, weren't they?" He placed a hand on Wanda's shoulder and she sobbed harshly.

"Yes. He's apparently trapped. She absorbed him, not just his powers, but his very being. He…disintegrated or…dissolved into her, body and soul."

Every curse word Remy could think of flew out of his mouth in a blind rage as he jumped to his feet. Oh, Anna! He scrubbed his hands angrily down his face. Life was so fucking unfair sometimes, how could something like this happen to her again? Hadn't Carol Danvers been enough? "You did this!?" he hurled at Wanda, "you and your damn chaos magic!?" Lorna's hand on his shoulder squeezed pleadingly, but fury was turning Remy's world a bright angry red.

"Not on purpose!" Wanda held a hand out pleadingly towards Gambit. "I'm so sorry Remy! I truly am! The Avengers are working on fixing this, I am working on fixing this! I promised I wouldn't leave her side until we found a way to separate the two of them! That's why she's with me! We've been working on this together!" She looked at Remy pitifully. "I know she's the woman you love, but Simon is the man I love. I am going to find a way to make this right."

"Fuck!" Remy slapped Lorna's hand away and stalked towards the door. He had already wasted too much time with these arrogant assholes. He needed to find Rogue.

"Gambit!" Wanda cried out. He wanted to ignore her and keep walking but something in her voice made him stop. "There's more!"

He turned violently towards her, causing the usually confident Witch to shrink into her brother's shoulder. Pietro glared warningly at Gambit. "Well!?" Gambit roared.

Wanda swallowed hard but wouldn't look at him. "Whatever happened short-circuited her own powers. She can't control her absorption abilities again. She can't touch anyone. I'm so sorry Remy," she said brokenly.

Remy's heart shattered into a million pieces and he sprinted from the room to find Rogue.


	2. Chapter 2

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

**Chapter Two**

He found her on the roof, of course. He should have just gone there first, but after Wanda's revelations he had wanted to make a quick detour to his quarters to grab gloves. His usual wardrobe included gloves that only covered the middle and ring fingers, and if Rogue's powers wouldn't let her touch anyone she'd throw up a wall something fierce to keep him at arm's length. Better to give her no excuse. _ Mon dieu_, he thought, _why is this happening to her again_?

As he neared her, he saw she wasn't exactly _on_ the roof. More like hovering at the edge of it, facing away from him. Remy approached slowly, not wanting to startle her into rabbiting. _Was it still rabbiting if you were airborne? Maybe birding?_ "Anna," he said steadily, slowing his steps. She was floating a good ten feet off the sticky asphalt surface. She sighed loudly.

"Go away, Remy," she growled.

He nearly tripped on his own feet at the sound of her voice. These were the first words she had said to him and, like always, she was using them to push him away.

"Came up here to be alone." Her voice sounded strange to him. It was hers, but deeper and with a slightly different inflection.

"If you wanted to be alone, cherie, why didn't you just keep flying? You could be halfway to Avengers' mansion by now and I couldn't stop you." He stepped forward again.

Rogue sighed again, clearly annoyed. "I'm trying," she huffed. "He won't let me."

Shit. Remy had witnessed too many times Rogue at the mercy of her own powers, being completely overtaken by a strong-willed baddie. He hadn't been part of the team while she shared her head with the persona she had absorbed and retained from Carol Danvers, the superhero Ms. Marvel. From what Rogue had said it was the most anguishing and confusing thing she had lived through, she had at times been unable to distinguish where she ended and Carol began, to the point where 'Carol' would hijack her body and take control. Rogue's personality and preferences had been tainted in ways unimaginable and now she was possibly reliving that nightmare. He reached the edge of the roof. "Chere, come down here and talk to me. I know what you're thinking, girl…"

She whipped her head towards him, that damned hood finally flying off. Remy murmured inwardly in relief at the sight of her green eyes, half afraid they would be Wonderman's signature red. "Do you really?" she roared angrily. "Do you know what both of us are thinking? 'Cause I do! Every. Damn. Thing!" She put her hands over her ears and groaned. "Dammit, I can't do this again, Remy!" She floated backwards until she was dangling freely away from the building. "I won't do this!" The girl was hurting right down to her soul and God help him he didn't know what to say to help her. He wished Stormy or Rachel or Kitty were here. Hell, even Logan. They had been her teammates in the Carol days, maybe they would know better.

"Come down here and we'll talk about this! Everyone just wants to help you!" He leaned against the ledge of the roof and held a hand towards her entreatingly.

Rogue's laughter sent a chill up his spine. "Like Wanda helped me?" she asked icily.

"That's not fair. I may not like her, but it sounds like she really wants to help you. Both of you. Ya' know better than anyone how unpredictable someone's powers can be, how the best of intentions can get completely screwed up. Running away again ain't the solution!" She folded her arms and bit her bottom lip which Remy took as a good sign. If he could get her to take a few deep breaths and just calm down… "Don't close yourself off, chere. I know you're hurt and angry and scared. Wanda told me your powers aren't working, that you can't touch anybody, but we'll work through it again. Everything gon' be fine chere, I promise." He saw Rogue wince and wanted more than anything to be able to keep the promise that he made to her long ago on the Xavier school rooftop. "When we first met, Anna, you had completely isolated yourself from your friends, your family. The prettiest damn girl I've ever seen, but so lonely. I know this seems like a huge setback, but don't wall yourself off again. Don't retreat into that shell and use your powers as an excuse to keep everyone that loves you at arms-length, to keep yourself numb. Let us help you!"

Rogue eyed him warily, but floated back to the roof, landing a safe distance from him. _T'hell with this_, Remy thought, and closed the gap between them in a few strides. He tried to pull her into his arms, but she struggled and she was stronger than him.

"No, Remy, stop…" she tried to shove him away but his agility and coordination made up for his lack of super-strength and he kept her arms tangled in his. She could easily knock him away, but he was pretty sure she didn't want to physically hurt him and took full advantage.

"No, Anna, you stop," he hissed and moved his hands to the sides of her face, thanking his foresight on the gloves as he forced her to look at him. "We been here before, chere, ain't nothing we can't handle."

Her eyes glazed over with unshed tears. "How can you say that? How can I go back to the way things were before? How can I never touch you again?"

He brushed the now falling tears from her cheeks. "You were going to touch me, eh?" He smiled crookedly at her and felt her relax her strength slightly.

"Remy, be serious, please," she pleaded, her bottom lip trembling.

"I am being serious! That's a big step from 'I need my space'!" He meant it as another joke, but her face paled at the comment. It was a low blow. If she hadn't needed her space and sent him away again after she gained control of her powers all those months ago, they would have been together doing a whole lot of touching. Maybe none of this – Avengers, Celestials, Simon- would have happened.

He tipped her chin towards him. "Seems like I've heard never from you before. In the old days? Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters? You used to tell me never all the time. That you could never touch me because of your powers. That you could never love me without hurting me. That we could never let anything happen between us. Remember that?" Her sad green eyes met his and he pulled her a little closer. "Never say never, cherie. You're an X-Man. You should know better."

She laughed and sobbed at the same time and he pulled her finally into his chest and held her close. He squeezed her as tightly as he could and kissed the top of her head, saying her name over and over into her sweet smelling hair. After she stopped shaking he pulled back from her slightly to get a good look at her face, but made sure to keep her in his arms. "Why didn't you call me? Tell me all of this was happening? I would have been there in a heartbeat. I hate to think y'been going through this by yourself." He shook his head sadly.

Brushing a wayward strand of white hair from her eyes, she smiled a small, sad smile. "Not totally alone. Hank's been real good. And Logan. Alex, when he has his head out of his ass…"

Remy rolled his eyes. "Don't get me started on Alex. That damn speech he gave made me want to drive to your mansion and kick him in the balls. Of all the insensitive…" He stopped himself. The infamous 'Call me Alex' speech by the Avengers' Unity Squad leader had scored a huge dividing line amongst most of the mutant community, but at the press conference where he had delivered that particular speech, Rogue had accidentally murdered Wonderman's brother, the villain known as the Grim Reaper. Better to let the subject drop rather than remind her of yet another mistake involving her powers.

Pointedly ignoring his path of conversation, Rogue continued on their original topic. "Sugar, you and me, we didn't exactly part on the best of terms."

Shrugging, Gambit dropped his hands to her waist and pulled her closer again. "So, we had a disagreement. We always have disagreements. Keeps things passionate. We fight, then we kiss and make up." She grimaced and looked away from him. "Poor choice of words maybe, but true, even before you ever could control your powers. Course back then we had to be a little more creative when we made up..." Rogue blushed furiously at the memories that his last comment had surely flared up. A hot girlfriend you couldn't touch wasn't ideal, but he had to admit he surprised even himself with the inventive ways he had come up with to allow them to get closer.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Simon," Rogue whispered as she blushed even deeper. Remy threw back his head and laughed. Poor Simon, trapped in Rogue's mind and sharing her every thought, should just enjoy the show. The memories that were playing were probably better than pay-per-view.

"Still didn't answer my question though. We fought. So what? This is pretty damn serious stuff you've been dealing with, why wouldn't you come to me?" He leaned in close again so she couldn't evade his glance.

"Didn't want you involved. Didn't want you hurt," she said defiantly as her anger rose again. "And you were the one who told me not to come to you at all." Her eyes blazed furiously. "Not a station along the way, remember?"

She was trying to piss him off to push him away, the back and forth like an old worn pair of shoes that they slipped into easily. He had been so angry at her on Utopia for the things she hadn't been ready to give him, and, frustrated, had finally broken things off to give her space to hopefully come to her senses. His plan had backfired spectacularly. He hadn't wanted them to call it quits and had hoped she would call his bluff. He smiled ruefully. "I sort of meant no booty calls. I didn't mean cut me from your life completely. I still wanted to be there for you, to be a friend if you needed it."

Her mouth snapped open and the look on her face made him realize that she had done exactly that, removed herself from his life. They had tried to work together at Logan's reopened Jean Grey School, but it had been too painful, especially after Charles's death. She had taken herself all the way to the Avengers to let him get on with his life without her interference. He grabbed her fiercely. "I said it, but I didn't want it. I didn't ever want us to be apart. You made that decision, like you made all of our decisions. My feelings were never in question. I'm not the one who moved on to someone else the same day I tell you that I love you like I never loved anyone else!"

Rogue sunk through his arms and sat on the roof. Remy knelt beside her, still holding her while trying to reign in his anger and disappointment. "No, you're just the one who broke us up in the first place by joining Apocalypse and trying to kill me." _The pain teeter-totter has a lot of momentum today,_ he thought bitterly. She was hurt to the bone and lashing out desperately, and there was so much between them that they hadn't dealt with, that they needed to finish, and they were never going to fix things if they were apart...

"What can I say, chere? We've hurt each other many times, but the love we share has always been our redemption, has made it all worthwhile. I know it's not perfect, that we have a long ways to go, but we belong together. It was a mistake for you to walk away, and it was a mistake for me to let you go. I meant what I said to you on Utopia, that I'm your end point, your harbor. 'Cause practically since the day we met you've been _my_ home. The timing may be lousy, and I may be a bad man…" he turned her face towards him again. "…but I'm down on my knees here, asking you if you're ready to let me love you, asking if you're ready to give us another chance," he smiled deeply. "You've always been my saving grace, Anna. Let me be the same for you, and we'll get through this and get on with our lives, finally, together."

"Still worth it?" She asked and smiled up at him sadly.

"Is that a statement or a question?" He asked, laughing lightly as a pleasant memory of a swimsuit and a windy Westchester afternoon bubbled to the surface of his mind.

She laughed back and leaned into his chest. "Take your pick, swamp rat." She breathed deeply and released a shaky sigh. "Still worth it to me."

He tucked her head under his chin. "Me, too. If you're ready to put all the angst and the drama behind us and finally move forward together, so am I. Let's get this Magneto bullshit handled and then see where we want to go?"

"I…I think that sounds perfect. I've missed you, Remy. Missed having you in my life. Missed being able to call you mine." They held each other in silence for a few heartbeats. She finally groaned and sat up straight. "Damn. I suppose I should apologize to Pietro. I may have overreacted a little." She grimaced sheepishly.

He laughed loud and deep. "Maybe…just a little. He'll get over it. I'm sure he's deserved worse." He untangled himself from her arms and helped her to her feet. "Let's go downstairs and see what it is the children of the corn have planned for us."


	3. Chapter 3

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's note: Hey, thanks for the reviews so far everybody! Appreciate the feedback. This chapter is a lot of setup, not much action, but I promise Chapter Four will be more...exciting. Incidentally, it's not necessary to have read the first few issues of the Magneto series to follow this story, but if you have it will make it (I hope) a little cooler. Thanks again!

**Chapter Three**

Pietro was a blur across the carpeted surface of the conference room. Remy realized the speedster had donned heavy work gloves and was cleaning up the broken glass from the window Rogue had shattered during her dramatic exit. The mutant practically sparkled as he picked piece after piece from the carpet. Lorna was using her magnetic powers to manipulate the metal frames of several of the chairs in the room into a makeshift window covering. Rogue walked in after Gambit, head held high, nodding in response to Wanda's expectant glance.

Remy came to stand beside the Scarlet Witch. "So, do you actually have a plan here? The X-Men have been looking for him for months, but you're just going to, what? Throw a dart at a map and start searching? Going after him is a terrible fucking idea, on this I actually agree with Pietro." Quicksilver stopped his cleaning long enough to glare at Gambit. From the look on his face he was still a little ticked at Rogue.

While Remy had gone after Rogue, Wanda had spread the contents of several file folders across the conference room tabletop. She smiled tightly at Rogue and gestured for Gambit to take a look. "To pick up where we left off, SHIELD has been tracking our father, attempting to get a lock on his location and bring him in. They've had a couple close calls but, frankly, I think they're not equipped for this kind of mission. He has held his own against the Avengers and the X-Men. Even if the rumors are true and his powers are waning, he is still more than a match for secret agents carrying handguns."

Remy scanned the papers Wanda had arranged for them. Central amongst them was a map of the continental U.S. decorated with red and green dots like some kind of sick sprinkles, each dot tagged with a date and time. Around the map lay printed articles detailing stories of mutant hate crimes, front page bylines that had made the local papers of random small towns. The dates and times of the articles coordinated with the green dots on the map. Other articles, the dates sometimes days later, coordinated with the red dots. These stories were accounts of Magneto the mutant savior bringing swift retribution on those responsible for the initial crimes. All of it seemed so…personal, so individual. The man was always so global in his plans, didn't care how many little guys he stepped on to get his way. Something seemed off about the whole situation.

"He's been flying low…" Remy said slowly as he trailed his fingers along the pages. "Licking his wounds, maybe? Staying off everybody's radar." He moved his fingers to the map. "Moving westward it looks like. But…building the legend again, non? Don't mess with mutants or the big bad Magneto comes for you in the night. Mothers, lock up your daughters…" he quipped hollowly.

Pietro skidded up to the table and dropped his gloves dramatically on the edge. "But, why? The rabble was always so beneath him. What has changed?"

"Charles died," Rogue said quietly, drawing everyone's eyes to her. She was much calmer now, collected and confident, how Remy had been used to seeing her lately. He sighed inwardly in relief. "Despite their history, Erik loved Charles. His death would have ripped him apart inside. There are very few people he has cared about in his life and Charles has been one of the constants. Even when they were bitter enemies, he still respected and looked out for the professor. He's picked up Xavier's mantle time and again when Charles couldn't." She scowled at the map. "This may be his warped version of a tribute, of carrying on the dream when the rest of us haven't been very worthy successors."

"What is it, chere?" Remy asked and stood behind her to look at the map. There were far more green dots than red, incidents of attacks on mutants without an accompanying Magneto marker.

"The towns he's hitting, the places he's striking…there's a pattern here. They seem to be of a certain size. Not big cities, but not real small towns either, see?" She pointed to a couple of the markers. The print of the city name and size of the point on the map were all about the same population Remy realized as his eyes found the map legend. Bigger cities had no Magneto sightings. "Enough of a population to not get lost in, but big enough to hide in."

"Sure. You know as well as I, chere, in small towns locals know a stranger when they see one. There'd be talk, but local talk. Not enough people to make a big stink. He needs people, but not too many people. These towns he's hit, they are guaranteed to have their own newspaper, maybe their own TV station, story gets attention, but they're small enough that I bet their police presence isn't that impressive. He can lay low, be anonymous until he's ready. Then, there's enough fuel for an explosion, but not too big, eh?" He threw a lopsided smile at Rogue. "Good catch," he said.

Queuing up a laptop she had brought to the table, Wanda tapped the keys quickly. "SHIELD is in contact with the Avengers and sent a list of articles that seem to fit his profile of retaliation. Here, let me print it so you can look at it." She pursed her lips in concentration. "Their organization has apparently been seeding news outlets with fake stories to flush him out, but thus far he hasn't taken their bait. Could we look at where he has reacted and narrow down a list of potential targets?" She handed the list to Gambit, the paper still warm from the room's printer. There were thirty reports listed, all dated within the last week.

"Worth a shot," he muttered. "Give us a place to start at least." He tilted the paper so Rogue could read it as well. She chewed her lip as she read.

"The older ones we can probably eliminate," she grabbed the edge of the page. "He seems to be popping up within a couple days of each incident. 'Spose it has more of an impact when tensions are still high, still fresh in people's minds." She gestured to the map on the table. Lorna, finished with her repairs, joined Pietro and Wanda as they looked at their forming pattern.

"There's at least a couple of days in between each of his strikes," Lorna said as she put her knee into a chair and leaned over the table. She tucked her green hair behind her ear and grabbed a random printout. "If he were flying under his own powers, he could get from place to place in no time at all and strike instantly. Is he traveling like a normal person? Maybe the reports of his waning powers aren't exaggerated?"

Pietro snorted again. "Are you implying that instead of using his magnetic powers he's taking the Greyhound to each of his destinations? Perhaps renting a car and hitting the local McDonald's drive-thru?" Pietro frowned and cocked his head to the side. "Come to think of it, I don't know if our father can even drive." Lorna scowled angrily in Pietro's direction.

"I don't think we can assume anything on his powers right now…that would be real dangerous," Remy said evenly. "But Lorna does bring up a good point. However he's getting from point A to point B, there's a definite lag time between when he surfaces. He's either traveling conventionally or taking time to get his bearings and to plan, but, for us, it means he's going to ground. He's landing somewhere he can be found." He pulled the list out of Rogue's hand and laid it on the table next to the map.

"You can't seriously think we're going to track him down at a Motel 6 or something of the like? That's preposterous." Pietro crossed his arms in annoyance.

"I don't think it is," Wanda interjected. "Don't give me that look, Pietro. It actually makes sense. All of these months, skilled people with state of the art equipment after him and no one has found him? But, those searching for him are reacting to him based on old patterns…" She laid a hand on Pietro's shoulder. "Our father is a survivor. Time and again he has been beaten down and still he has persevered. When faced with adversity, he becomes a new man, changes tactics. Sheds his skin…"

"Like a snake…" Remy muttered, receiving a glare from Lorna.

Wanda continued. "What if this time he's not holed up in Antarctica or on a floating asteroid in Earth's orbit? This time…" she pulled a photo from her stack of files. It was a black and white shot from a security camera feed. "…he's hiding in plain sight." Remy had to do a double take at the photograph. The quality wasn't great, but it was of a city sidewalk. The shops lining the edge of the image were the antique stores and boutiques you'd find in any smallish city's main street revitalization area. The walk was crowded, but not New York City crowded, couples walking arm in arm, groups of ladies pushing strollers. Smack in the center, so nondescript he nearly missed him, was a man in an army jacket with a backpack slung over his shoulder.

"Jesus!" Remy leaned in closer. The man, of an indeterminable age with a surprisingly shaved head, was Magneto. "Who loves you baby!" He jabbed his finger at the face turned slightly from the camera. Rogue gasped and leaned closer to the grainy image. "All the man needs is a lollipop!" Remy pouted when no one laughed at his joke. "What, Telly Savalas not relevant anymore?" Rogue scowled at him as Lorna rolled her eyes and pushed off from the table. "Should I have gone in a more Mr. Clean direction?" _Or Charles Xavier…not creepy at all_, Remy thought but kept it to himself for now.

"Anyway…" Lorna said, waving a hand in the air. "We need a plan and we need to move quickly here. We can't chase him for weeks, SHIELD and the rest of the Avengers will never allow that. Our window of opportunity seems to be closing quickly. Suggestions on how to proceed?"

"Remy and I can definitely narrow down the list of potential targets to ones that fit his pattern," Rogue crossed her arms and nodded in his direction. He couldn't help but grin at the thought of working alone together for the next couple hours, even if it meant being roped into this bullshit. "From the looks of the list, some of these targets are clustered together. He's probably getting his news from the internet or the news wires, same as SHIELD. Maybe when we have some possibilities, we could split up? Do a ground search the old fashioned way?" She said it like a question and directed it at Remy. Why did he all of a sudden feel like he was leading this dumbass mission? He let out a sharp breath.

"I like the idea of figuring out where he's going to strike, maybe being there before he can. I don't like the idea of splitting up, but we may not be able to avoid it. There's so many problems with this caper I can't even begin to formulate a strategy…" He ran a hand through his hair and despite his irritation he smirked as he caught Rogue's eyes locked almost hungrily on the sight of his chin length tresses. He shook them a bit and winked at her. He was pretty sure from the look she was giving him that the sight of a bald Magneto did nothing for her.

"So 'Cyclops', what issues do you feel we need to address before we can get airborne?" Pietro sniped as he was speed-reading through a stack of the newspaper articles sprinkled across the table.

"Thought you didn't want in on this?" Remy ribbed the man, but Pietro continued flipping through the papers.

"I do not. But I can hardly allow my sisters to confront our father without me. I am sure you can relate." He raised his eyes briefly and looked towards Rogue for a split second and then met Remy's gaze. Remy nodded slightly. There was no way that girl was going off after Magneto without him.

"Okay," Remy ran his hand roughly across his jaw. "Issues." He raked his eyes across the faces of the mutants gathered around him. "First, you're all too recognizable to him. Shit, he knows all of us on sight. Can't run a caper if you've been made, we are gonna need damn good disguises. Lorna, Pietro and Rogue's hair are a hot mess in terms of keeping a low profile. You'll all stick out like a sore thumb, especially in a small town. Truthfully, if he spots us or gets wind of us before we're ready to confront him, it's over. This is going to be tough. We need to be slightly behind him, but still looking at where he's going and working to get a step ahead. We're gonna have to cut your ties with SHIELD and keep contact with the Avengers to a minimal. Your father's good, real good, but the way he's been avoiding those looking for him means he may have people helping along the way, someone on the inside. Last thing we need is to have him get wind of us until we're ready and have a good strategy in place.

"Second, Magneto could care less about civilians or collateral damage. The more of a mess, the more his name'll be in the headlines. None of us can afford to risk innocent bystanders or get any more bad press." He raised an eyebrow at Rogue. "Third, we can't go in all Avengers. Can't use your fancy Quinjet, too easy to spot. We're going to have to go low-tech or he's going to know somebody's after him. If his powers are even a fraction of what they were, he's going to be able to block a lot of scanners and equipment, sense image inducers. We're going to have to go old school, pounding the pavement, asking questions and digging up dirt. Study our surroundings."

"This isn't a jewel-heist, Remy," Rogue kidded.

"Same tactics, chere. Know your target, know your environment."

Wanda sighed and sunk with a small thud into one of the chairs. "This isn't how I hoped this would go. I just wanted to find him, reason with him before it came to any more violence. With all of our resources available, your suggestion is that we hunt him down like some human private investigator?"

Remy shrugged. "Can't be sneaky with your Avengers' jet screaming overhead."

"Can't be fast flying commercial, either," Lorna reminded him. X-Factor had been taking Serval Industries' corporate jet to most of their missions and it hadn't really worked in their favor. "Harrison has a smaller Cessna on the grounds. I have to clear this mission with him anyway, I'll get that plane. We can make flight plans, land in the smaller airports that will be close to our targets. It'll take longer, but I think Remy's right, Wanda. A Quinjet is just too adversarial."

Tracing her fingers over the map again, Rogue's hand came to rest on a small airport in the Western U.S. that was adjacent to several small cities. In her other hand, she held SHIELD's list of mutant incidents. "These towns," She left a thumb on the airport and pointed one finger each at four surrounding cities, spreading her hand across the map. "Are on our list and seem to fit the pattern. We fly the Cessna, land here," she tapped her thumb against the map, "split up and each make our way to a town to search on our lonesome." She tapped each finger on the cities. "Civilian clothes, keep in contact with cell phones. Recon only, touch base on whatever we find?" She looked questioningly at Remy. Pursing his lips, he nodded in agreement.

"Sounds like we've got a plan. Sort of." He placed his hand on Rogue's and moved it aside, running his thumb slowly along the underside of her gloved palm, smiling slightly seductively as he did so. She eyed him warningly but returned the smile. "First thing's first though, chere. I think we need to check out the places we know for sure he's already been. I know we're on a time crunch and flying a conventional plane is gonna slow us down even more, but we need to see the steps he's taken before we're going to figure out how he's moving forward. SHIELD is good, their people are good, but there ain't nobody alive that knows him like you four do. They may have missed something, some evidence or witness, some motivation. We won't."

"Good thinking, Cajun." She smiled deeper and leaned towards him, all magnolia and sugar syrup, her destructive temper tantrum from earlier just a memory. He had forgotten just how intoxicating her presence could be to him. Beyond all the drama and angst there was always a solid fiery passion that connected them, still as vivid as ever.

"If you two are through?" Pietro broke the spell and Rogue pulled her hand away from Remy. "We can't use image inducers. Gambit is right, if my father's powers are even slightly functioning he would spot their electronic signature within a thousand yards. I suppose I could find some baseball caps or something suitable for disguises."

Remy shook his head, "Non. You read up on all of this stuff. You'll get through the info quicker. Look for anything relevant that we may have missed. Be thorough." He pointed to each of them in turn. "Wanda, touch base with Alex on our intentions, get us as much time as you can, let him know we'll be incommunicado unless absolutely necessary. Then, get some civvies rounded up for disguises. Get a wig for Lorna, that green hair ain't going to hide under a baseball hat. Maybe some Grecian formula for Pietro?" That got him a withering look from the speedster but Remy just chuckled. "Rogue, double check our pattern cities. Google information on the towns you think are possibilities for his next targets. We need the closest airports, a list of hotels, population distribution, and police strength on each, anything you think will be useful. I'll do the same for our first stops, the towns he's already tore up. Somebody has to have seen him, talked to him that didn't talk to the police or SHIELD. I want us to canvas the towns and find out every step he took. Lorna, work your magic on Snow."

Wanda stood. "Can we be airborne in three hours?" She asked, looking at each of them. The siblings nodded stiffly. Rogue nodded and removed her hoodie, revealing a tight green tank top underneath. Remy smiled devilishly as she wrangled a seat in front of the laptop on the table, still in mild disbelief that they were back together after so many months apart.

"Google, here I come," she smirked as Wanda, Pietro and Lorna left the conference room. Remy leaned over her to look at the screen. Her fingers flew across the keyboard and Remy breathed deep, happy to be close. He sighed and barely stopped himself from kissing her bare shoulder.

"Careful, sugar." Rogue whispered. "There's another laptop on the banquet over there."

"Oui." He kissed the top of her hair, slightly defeated.


	4. Chapter 4

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's note: Mature audiences only on this chapter. Things get rather heated between everyone's favorite Southerners. Thanks for the reviews!

**Chapter Four**

Beloit, Kansas wasn't quite the armpit of America, but close enough. The town wasn't on SHIELD's list, but it connected two dots on the Magneto map and had come up under a big red flag during Remy's internet search of police reports. A motel had reported a suspicious man, and according to the account the man, a nice man who kept to himself, had paid cash for an entire week but vanished before his stay was up. These things probably happened all the time, but what the housekeeper had found in his room, what had tipped Remy to the statement, had been scary enough to get the local authorities involved. The report had been filed two days ago. Remy hoped the phrase 'continuing investigation' meant the room hadn't been disturbed yet and that SHIELD hadn't gotten wind of it.

They had landed Snow's fancy Cessna at the Moritz Memorial Airport. The pole barn that served as the airport's terminal wasn't big enough to have rental cars, but luckily a nearby Enterprise Rent-A-Car had dropped them off a vehicle. One of Remy's aliases, Mr. Mark Wright, rented himself a sensible crossover vehicle and they all crammed inside.

They left Pietro, lawyered up in a three-piece suit complete with blackened eyebrows and wig, near the local police station. Remy was hoping Quicksilver could bully his way in, get a view of a hard copy of the police report and any evidence that had already been collected.

Wanda and Lorna, now a brunette, went to some of the surrounding stores and shops to search for potential witnesses, anyone that had contact with who they assumed was Magneto during his stay. They had dropped Remy and Rogue and their backpacks at the motel. Rogue was currently at the front desk renting a room, Remy leaning on a pillar outside the entryway. They really had no intention of staying the night, they couldn't waste that much time, but they needed to try to get into the room Magneto had potentially stayed in, and needed an excuse to be in and around the motel so as not to arouse suspicion.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he caught sight of a room on the second floor crisscrossed with yellow-police tape. Unless there had been a murder today, the room was still as Magneto had left it. Maybe they would get lucky. There were four cars in the parking lot, only one with out of county plates. It was a weekday, out of season for construction work. The motel was nearly deserted.

He uncrossed his arms and pushed the sleeves of his red flannel shirt up his forearms. He tugged angrily at the waistband of the skinny jeans Wanda had inexplicably gotten as part of his civilian disguise. His Ray-Ban sunglasses and black boots made him feel like an idiot college student, but from the appreciative smile the petite brunette housekeeper walking by flashed his way he knew he had to look pretty damn good. He smiled back as she headed up the rickety metal staircase. And, speaking of idiot college students…

Pulling his sunglasses down onto his nose to look in the glass doors of the lobby he saw Rogue leaning suggestively over the counter as she talked to the skinny college-aged male running the front desk. He'd have to make it a point to thank Wanda for Rogue's outfit. She looked like a bored movie starlet hiding from the paparazzi, all she was missing was a Starbuck's latte. She wore a belted grey mini dress with buttons down the front, the dress covering black leggings and Doc Marten boots. A sheer black grandpa-looking cardigan hung loosely on her slim frame, and a black and grey leopard print scarf was looped around her neck, leaving a nice window between it and the neckline of her dress. Gloves were a necessary addition to the outfit, and they had hid her white stripe with a beanie stocking hat, worn like the kids wore them, not really pulled down like a winter hat but sort of plopped on her head with the white hair all stuffed inside it. She looked hot.

Remy shook his head and made himself look away. His jeans were a little too tight and staring at the cleavage spilling out of her dress under that scarf was not helping the situation. Pulling his cell phone from his pocket he shot Rogue a quick text. _Checking housekeeper let u know if I get in_. Making sure the phone was on vibrate, he headed upstairs after the motel employee and almost ran her and her cleaning cart over as he stepped off the staircase and rounded the corner.

"Excuse me, Miss," he said gallantly, laying on a fake deep-south accent, extra thick. Mark Wright was from Kentucky. "Let me help you with that." The young woman blushed when he maneuvered the cart forward on the shaky walkway.

She smiled at him from under blunt cut bangs. "Thanks, but I can get it from here." She waited expectantly for him to relinquish control of her cart heavy with mini shampoos and towels.

"It's not like I'm doing anything else right now," Remy shrugged and smiled affably. Better to play the 'aw shucks' card rather than 'lady killer' in a small town. "Just waiting on my sister to check in. She's taking forever. She likes to talk. A lot. Girl could have a conversation with a brick wall." He pushed the cart towards the next room and she followed.

"Oh? Your sister? Are you guys on a family vacation?" She asked and played nervously with her ponytail.

"Uh, not exactly." The cover story they had made up was weak, but it was all he could come up with on short notice. He was counting on his charm to fill in any of the holes. Remy bowed his head sheepishly and did his best Sam Guthrie. "We're looking for our uncle. He's missing."

A small hand flew to the girl's open mouth. "Oh no! I'm so sorry…"

Remy nodded his head appreciatively. "Thank you. He's a veteran, y'see. Served his country, did our family real proud." The girl nodded attentively. "He's good most of the time, when he takes his meds he's okay. But if he forgets…" Remy bit his lip and ran a hand sheepishly through his hair. "He gets real…obsessed. About…" He lowered his voice. "…mutants." The girl's brown eyes widened. "He gets real paranoid, thinks someone's after him, goes into hiding on his own. On the computer all the time, reading every newspaper he can get his hands on. The last spell he shaved all of his hair off…" The girl gasped and bit her lip to stop making any more noise. "I'm so sorry," he said to her, lightly touching her shoulder. "I shouldn't be laying this on you. I probably need to go find my sister. The police had called and said they had information for us." He smiled graciously. "I'll leave you to your work, I didn't mean to scare you." He turned to leave. She grabbed his wrist as he turned and Remy had to keep himself from smiling.

"No," she said, "wait. You're not scaring me, it's just…" Remy turned to her. She was chewing her lip and looking around nervously. Her eyes landed on the doorway decorated with yellow police tape. "They told us not to say anything…"

He clasped both of her hands in his and squeezed. "Do you know something? Was he here? Anything you could tell me... I don't want to get you in trouble, it's just we've been so worried, he's never been gone so long…"

She squeezed his hands back and then let them go, her eyes now determined. "Come with me," she beckoned and abandoned her cart, walking quickly down the catwalk towards the room. Remy followed, she pulled her key card from her apron pocket and stopped in front of the door. Checking to make sure the coast was clear, she inserted the key. The light turned to green and the lock clicked. She shooed Remy into the room and he ducked under the tape, amazed he could squat so low in his tight jeans. "Don't touch anything…" She warned as she followed and softly shut the door. The room was dark and musty and she made sure the curtains were tucked around the edges of the window. He didn't want to take his sunglasses off and reveal his unique eyes, but the lighting left him little choice. He stepped forward, but before he could remove his shades she snapped on the lamp and stood next to the nightstand gazing over his head at the far wall. The lighting was dim enough and she was far enough away that he merely lowered the sunglasses on his nose, hiding his red on black eyes. He looked questioningly at her.

"He was really nice to me, actually," she whispered. "He seemed okay. Just kept to himself. Had me bring him the newspapers every day. Didn't want his room serviced, but he tipped me anyway. I didn't see him for a couple of days, then his truck disappeared. I used my key card and found this…" She stood solemnly next to the bed and nodded towards the wall. Remy turned and his jaw dropped as he took in Magneto's handiwork. The description from the police report he had read online had not done it justice, their cover story hadn't been too far off at all. 'Obsessed' seemed apt. Pinned to the wall was a map of the U.S. surrounded by newspaper clippings. The clippings were connected to locations on the map by pieces of black string. He stepped closer and ran a gloved finger along the strings and recognized faces and places from the files they had received from SHIELD.

The girl shuffled towards the door. "I'll give you a few minutes to look everything over. It's pretty quiet today, but I'll keep a lookout and call the room if the police come. They were here yesterday, but maybe you'll find something they missed." Remy turned back towards her. "I hope you find him." She smiled and put her hand on the handle of the door. "I have to get back to work."

"Thank you, you have no idea how much I appreciate this…I didn't even ask you your name! I'm Mark." He smiled sheepishly and stepped towards her.

"Deena."

"Thank you, Deena."

"You're welcome." She opened the door a crack and looked out. Seeing no one, she ducked under the tape. "Don't be too long, Mark." She smiled tightly and clicked the door closed.

Alone, Remy flipped his shades up on his head and slowly scanned the room. He shook his head in frustration. If he couldn't use an image inducer to hide his eyes, they would need something else. Their color was too recognizable and unusual. He put it in the back of his mind and started his search. Shabby bedspread, place needed re-carpeted and the artwork was suitably tacky. His eyes returned to the wall of crazy Magneto had left behind. He stepped forward and turned on more of the lamps in the room. _Fuck_, he thought, and pulled his phone out of his back pocket, started snapping pictures. Most of the articles they already had hard copies of, but he made sure to snap close-ups of them anyway as passages had been underlined in black ink. He stepped back for a wide angle shot and a cold feeling crept into his stomach. This was bad. Beyond bad.

After photographing every square inch and pocketing his phone, Remy began a thorough search of the room, hoping to find anything else of importance that the police may have missed. On his knees partially under the dusty bed his phone vibrated. A text from Rogue. _Room 211_. He sat back on his haunches and shot back _Be right there_. He stood and stretched. Nothing else of significance seemed to be in the room, just old newspapers and dirty coffee mugs. He turned off the lamps and slid a finger along the edge of the curtain, peeking out into the parking lot. He slowly opened the door and, looking in every direction, shimmied under the police tape. He hiked up his pants again and dropped his shades back into place.

211 turned out to be on the opposite side of the motel. Rogue opened the door before he even had a chance to knock and held it wide. "Where'd you disappear to, Cajun?" she asked. Closing the door she turned to face him and crossed her arms under her chest. A laptop was open on the bed and her heavy boots were piled on the floor.

His face split into a wide smile at the sight of her. He triumphantly pulled his phone out of his pocket and flipped up the pictures he had taken. He handed it to Rogue and delighted in her shocked expression.

"You already got into the room? How'd you manage that? I thought you didn't want to try to pick a card-lock in broad daylight?"

He laughed softly, pulled down his sleeves and buttoned the cuffs. "No guild skills required, chere." He switched to his Kentucky accent. "Just a little down home charm." Rogue rolled her eyes and paced around the room, flicking through the camera roll.

Remy snatched the stocking hat from her head, her white stripe tumbling loose from its cage. "How 'bout you, girl? Any luck?"

She bit her lip and gestured towards the computer. "He's driving a blue bronco. Pietro was wrong I guess…he had it in the motel parking lot, and the same vehicle was found abandoned outside the police station that was the scene of his big blow-up." Remy sat on the bed and pulled the computer onto his lap.

"How'd you manage that?" He mocked and raised an eyebrow in her direction.

"Oh, you know. Small towns are full of neighborly folk." She waved a hand airily.

"Right. Nothing to do with the top two buttons on your dress bein' undone?"

"Same as your charm having nothing to do with those tight ass pants you're wearin', sugar."

Laughing, Remy quickly read the police report Rogue had found on the abandoned vehicle. So, he's driving, not using his powers to fly. He looked up at the uncharacteristically quiet Rogue and found her standing still, her face ashen in the lamplight. Remy deposited the laptop back on the bed and came to stand in front of her. He placed his hands on her slim shoulders. She swallowed, unable to pull her eyes from the phone's screen. "This is definitely…obsessed," she whispered.

"I know, chere." He pulled the phone from her hands, flicking the ringer back on he tossed it on the bed next to the laptop. He rubbed his hands up and down the thin sweater covering her arms. "I don't mean to sound crass, but what were you expecting here? You read SHIELD's reports. He's lost it. A blind man could see this isn't going to end well."

She glared angrily at him and pushed his arms away a little too hard. "What were _you_ expecting here, Remy? If you knew this was going to be a disaster, why did you insist on coming?" He stepped towards her again and ran a gloved finger down the side of her face.

"I think you already know the answer to that," he said huskily. Their eyes locked for a few heartbeats and he relished their closeness, the heat of her. "I just can't figure your reasons."

She pushed his hand down. "I don't want to hurt you, Remy, not when I'm just finding you again," she said thickly. "I don't know how to explain it to you, to make you understand. I'm not even sure why I'm here myself. All I know is I had to come." She was fighting tears and broke eye contact with him. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear any of this, her feelings, her love for the other man. "I need you to understand, Remy, I just…" her bottom lip trembled and her voice broke.

He took a step back and shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from grabbing her. "S'okay, chere. I think I get it, don't need you to explain. He saved you all those years ago. The attraction was there, he's crazy powerful, don't have to tell me power's hot. You were pissed at me and needed to sow some wild oats, maybe?"

"No, dammit! That's not it!" She grabbed his shirt front desperately. "Back…before you joined…you were right. Everyone stayed away from me. My friends, my teammates, they all were afraid of me. The girl with the poison skin. Nobody even looked twice at me, it wasn't worth the effort." Her laugh was short and thick with phlegm. "My coming here, my relationship with Erik, it's more than him saving me in the Savage Land. It's the connection I felt to him. In that damn jungle, for the first time ever for me, there was a spark. Someone let themselves get close to me, someone wanted to get close to me. It was like nothing I had ever felt…I had never allowed myself to feel passion before…" Passion. Remy winced at the word. She had never given any details of her time spent barely clothed in a jungle paradise with Magneto. He had never pressed her for details, no one really wanted the dirt about their lover's old flames. All he knew for sure was that she had been a virgin before their first night together in Antarctica, the suppression of their powers that lead to that coupling courtesy of Magneto, oddly enough, but beyond that…

"That connection," she continued, "it was immediate and it was intense. But events spiraled out of our control. We went our separate ways, life with the X-Men went on. Time came we confronted him again as an enemy and he acted…hostile…like nothing had happened during our time together, like there had been no feelings between us. He made me feel like I had made it up, that I was some wide-eyed innocent girl desperate for his affection. I was so angry, felt so betrayed, but I couldn't help caring about him because I had seen the good in him, had felt it strong between us. I think that's part of the reason he pushed me away. I had seen the man that he could be and it scared him. On Utopia, you and I weren't together, and suddenly there he was, playing the hero, all charm and gallantry…he acted again like the man I had only caught a glimpse of. He and I started flirting and that connection, the spark, was there again…"

"So, after he treated you like that - ignored you, strung you along, made you think you had made everything up – he crooks his finger and you fall all over him? Only after you learn to control your powers? That's messed up, girl!" Remy gripped her hands tightly. "That's not love!"

She shook her head. "I never said anything about love. Feeling connected to someone doesn't mean soul mates. I just want you to understand why I went to him…I was hurt and angry and confused by what Haller and Moira had put us through and I needed to feel wanted, to feel alive. I tried to talk to you about it, but you pushed me away and I felt so damn…alone. And he was there, and the connection was there, and he wanted me. So, hell, I thought maybe I owed it to myself, to that lonely girl I used to be, to see if there had ever been anything there. It was stupid, I know, and my carelessness nearly cost me everything, nearly cost me you. I think I came along on this mission because I consider him a friend and I cared about him, but nothing more. I never loved him, not like I love you, Remy. I just hope you can forgive me for not understanding what you were trying to tell me on Utopia, that we belong together."

He pulled her into his chest roughly. "Nothing to forgive, chere, we both made mistakes. We just have to work real hard on makin' it right," he whispered heatedly into her hair. He ran his hands up and down her back and held her tight. She pulled back from him and tipped her chin up slightly, green eyes shimmering, her lips slightly parted. He leaned forward and felt her tense up. _Fuck. Her powers_. He had almost forgotten. Inspired by a memory, he gently pulled the tail of her scarf free and held it between them as he pressed his lips to hers. It wasn't perfect, but he could feel her warm, sweet breath. He opened his eyes and met hers, asking for permission to continue. He didn't want to scare her away, to move too fast, but it had been too long. Her eyes burned and she pulled his face to hers. He kissed her again through their thin cover and she responded hungrily. One hand held the scarf to her face and the other crushed her body to his. He shifted the scarf to kiss down her neck into the hollow of her throat. He walked her back against the wall and pushed his growing hardness against her. She moaned as his free hand worked its way under the hem of her skirt. His mouth moved to her breast, circling her nipple with his tongue through the sheer dress. She reached between them, unzipped his jeans and ran a gloved hand along his length. "Anna…" he moaned at her unexpected forwardness. _Been too long for her, too_. She wrapped a leg around his waist and tilted her hips towards him. He curled her other leg around him and picked her up, shoving himself against her. Panting heavily they rocked feverishly against each other in a desperate need.

"Remy," she whimpered, her eyes rolling back in her head. He picked up the speed and held her around the waist with one arm. With the other he slipped his gloved hand between them, down the waistband of her leggings.

"God damn, girl," he moaned, nearly losing himself when the phone blared alarmingly from the bed. Ignoring it, he worked her in a steady rhythm. The ringing stopped, but Rogue's phone buzzed insistently from her pocket. They stopped and Remy dropped his head onto her chest in defeat. "Fuck," he muttered, Rogue fumbling breathlessly for her phone.

"Hello?" Rogue tipped her head back against the wall and tried to get her breathing under control as Remy untangled himself from her. _Right. We're on a mission_. "I think we've got all we can get here Lorna. Have you heard from Pietro?" She smiled sadly at him and straightened her dress as he grabbed his backpack and stepped towards the bathroom.

_Damn. What was that_? The Rogue he had first met had never been the one to make the first move. That girl had been so naive and so scared of her powers that anything he had suggested to work around them had sent her running for the hills. That Rogue would never have let him dry hump her against a wall, let alone give him a gloved hand-job. Not that he was complaining.

He heard Rogue's muffled voice through the bathroom door. "That sounds good, sugar. We're in room 211. We can show you what we've got, compare notes. Then we can get the hell out of this town….Yeah, the plane is way nicer than this shithole….Can you grab something to eat on the way through? We're starving! Thanks Lorna, see you in about a half hour!"

He stripped his shirt off and tossed his toiletries kit on the bathroom counter. He was debating the merits of a cold shower versus finishing himself off when Rogue pushed open the bathroom door. Unembarrassed he turned towards her, his hand in his unzipped pants, firmly holding his still hard cock. She softly closed the door behind her and turned, her eyes hungrily raking up and down his body as he let go of himself.

"They'll be here soon, Remy," she said and stepped towards him. She reached out with her gloved hand and ran her fingers down his tanned chest and stomach. His hardness twitched at her touch and he moved a little closer so she could feel him. "We don't have much time."

"Don't need long to make you come, girl," he whispered raggedly.

She bit her lip. "We have to be careful, sugar. How can we…?" This Rogue was definitely different. She had lived for a long time now with the freedom that control of her powers had given her. She had changed, knew what she wanted and was gonna take it, t'hell with the consequences. He was inclined to agree with her. Mission or no, powers or no powers, it had been too damn long since he had made love to this girl and she looked like she needed it. He pulled his shirt back on and looked her up and down.

"Trust me?" he asked as he stepped towards her with an idea. She swallowed hard and nodded, he pulled on his gloves, tucking the shirt cuffs into the openings. He hiked up the hem of her dress and slid his hand into her leggings again. She moaned and leaned back on the bathroom counter as he worked her back and forth. He reached up and slipped the leggings off, running his hands briefly up her toned legs.

"Remy?" she asked warily when he hoisted her to sit on the edge of the counter.

"I want you," he whispered roughly. "I ain't afraid of your powers. I can make this work for us. We can do this." Her face was flushed and she nodded. He scrambled through his toiletry kit and found a condom. He pulled himself free of his boxer briefs and unrolled the condom along his shaft, her eyes watching his every move. "We'll be careful, girl, I promise," he said and pulled his boxer briefs back up and pushed his length through the front flap. "Double-bagged, eh?" he joked, settling between her legs.

"Our skin could still touch..." she looked at him worriedly.

"I don't care," he answered honestly. "All I care about is being inside of you one way or the other. If that means that it's my mind that is part of you, it'll be worth it. Your choice." It wasn't playing fair, but he rubbed his gloved fingers along her again and pressed them deep inside her.

She nodded erratically. "I want this, Remy," she whispered.

She arched her back and spread her legs, inviting him in. He grabbed her hips roughly and pushed himself slowly inside her. Their eyes locked as he shoved deep, pulling a shaky moan from the depths of their souls. His strokes were slow at first, making sure she was comfortable and that their protection was in place. She rolled her eyes back into her head and shuddered, wrapping her legs around him and pulling him further into her. Unable to control himself anymore, he pushed faster, pounding mercilessly against her, not caring if their skin touched or not. Anna cried out as he picked up the pace, his thrusts rattling the mirror behind them. Her breathing was heavy, labored. She tipped her head back and wailed his name. The scarf slipped from her neck and fell into the sink, exposing her breasts. A rosy pink nipple poked stiffly out of the edge of her lacy black bra. He wanted so badly to take it in his mouth, run his tongue around it. _Oh god_, he thought, groaning out loud, _come girl, come! I can't hold it anymore!_ She panted heavily and grabbed her own breast as if she could read his mind. Running her hand along the seam of her bra she pulled the breast free and pinched the nipple. She bucked her hips up to meet him, moving herself back and forth. He reached in between them and rubbed his thumb along her while he hammered against her fiercely. His wild desperate thrusts sent her over the edge and she came, her violent shaking finishing him off in a shuddering, slick climax.

Panting, he pulled out of her and snapped the condom off. He stood still for a second, watching her in sweaty satisfaction.

With a shaky sigh she slid down from the counter. "My legs are wobbly," she grinned lopsidedly at him. Her hair was an unholy mess.

"Did my job right then." He wrapped the condom in a tissue and tossed it in the garbage can. "Little shaky myself, chere. They'll be here soon. We better get cleaned up."

Rogue winced. "Yeah, I guess. We're probably busted anyway, it smells like sex in here." They both laughed breathlessly. Remy kissed the top of her hair.

"I'll take a quick rinse off, give you a chance to calm down before you shower. You look like somebody just fucked your brains out." Smiling like the cat that ate the canary he stripped and turned the shower on full blast.

"Oh my lord!" He laughed as he jumped in and pulled the yellowed curtain, leaving Rogue staring in the mirror at the tangled horror on top of her head.


	5. Chapter 5

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's note: A shorter chapter, but I figured we could all use a chance to cool down after chapter 4. Enjoy and thanks everybody for the reviews!

**Chapter five**

Five minutes later he was squeaky clean and presentable and Rogue was taking her turn in the shower. The sound of a car and slamming doors drew his attention. He stepped out of their room onto the walkway and waved at his awkwardly brunette boss and her siblings. Lorna smiled broadly and brandished several large pizza boxes. Remy bounded down the stairs, starving.

"Fantastic!" He grabbed the boxes and kissed Lorna's startled cheek. He inhaled the thick cheesy fragrance. "Mind-reader, this one! How'd you know buffalo chicken is my favorite? Extra spicy?"

"Hello to you, too," she sighed rolling her eyes. "Thank Rogue. She texted me your favorite toppings. She must have thought you deserved a treat."

Waggling his eyebrows he merely smiled. "Jus' been working real hard, chere."

"Why are you in such a good mood?" Pietro's voice grated irritably on Remy's nerves but he was determined to not let it bring him down.

Remy shrugged and climbed lightly up the stairs. Magneto's children trudged sullenly after him, their steps thudding and shaking the exposed metal staircase. "Like I said. Been working real hard, found a few things. Good or bad, we'll see."

Pietro sniffed disgustedly when he reached the top of the staircase. "God, this place is a dump. What do you call a step down from a motel? Hovel?"

Balancing the pizza boxes theatrically on the fingertips of one hand, Remy inserted his keycard into the slot of room 211. "Good enough for your poppa," he quipped as the lock clicked open. He turned to open the door with his butt and leaned on the door handle. He caught a glimpse of the trio's shocked expressions.

"He…he was here then?" Wanda asked quietly. Remy pushed the door open wide and let the others enter the room.

"Oh yeah, he was definitely here." Rogue was still in the bathroom though the water was no longer running. He set the pizza boxes on the desk. Wanda pulled paper plates, napkins, and sodas from a shopping bag that had been slung over her arm. Remy rapped on the bathroom door as Lorna and Pietro de-wigged and swarmed Wanda and the food. "They're back, chere. And they brought extra cheese."

The door swung open in a burst of scented steam. "Thank God!" Rogue sighed exaggeratedly. "I'm starving!" Big surprise, Remy thought and laughed out loud. He moved the laptop from the bed to the top of the dresser to give them room on the comforter picnic style. As everyone began to munch, he pulled a cord from the laptop travel bag and plugged his phone into the computer. The images he took this afternoon would be much easier for everyone to study on a larger screen.

Rogue was on her second piece by the time he flopped down next to her with his own plate. He smiled slyly at her. The girl's appetite was the stuff of X-Men legend. Unlike Lorna who fretted every calorie unnecessarily, Rogue never complained about her weight. Food was food, and like everything else in her life that she loved, she attacked it with gusto.

Lorna was busy blotting her first piece of veggie pizza with a pile of napkins, Pietro was attempting unsuccessfully to cut his slice into tiny pieces with a plastic knife and fork, and Wanda, who Remy had assumed was much too prissy for pizza, was eyeing a rather large chunk of his precious buffalo chicken suspiciously. She finally took a tentative bite, chewed it slowly and seemed to deem it worthy of her attention.

"Why did you two take showers?" Lorna frowned at Remy and Rogue from her corner of the bed. _Whoops_, Remy thought. _Why did we? It kind of looks bad_. He took a drink of soda to give himself a few seconds to think of a non-sex excuse. Not that he cared, he wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but he didn't want to embarrass Rogue until they had a chance to figure out where things stood.

"Personally, this town just makes me feel dirty," Rogue chimed in. Remy choked on his mouthful of soda and the bubbles burned fiercely up his nose.

Lorna abandoned her pizza and slapped him on the back. "Geez, Remy. Don't hurt yourself."

Rogue smiled sweetly at him, but her green eyes glinted wickedly. "What did you guys come up with today?" She pulled a greasy pepperoni from her slice and dangled it into her mouth.

"Not a blasted thing." Pietro tossed his napkin onto the desktop and stretched his neck. "No one at the police station could give me any more information then what was included in the report you found in the online records. 'That case is currently under investigation' seemed to be the only thing those people were capable of saying."

"We didn't fare much better," Wanda sighed. "Our father seemed to have no contact with any person beyond this property."

Remy nodded in agreement and risked another large swig of soda.

"Yeah," Rogue replied grimly. "Seems like this motel is where all the action is." Remy choked again, coughing fizz down his shirtfront.

"Remy, what the hell?" Lorna jumped back from him.

"Perhaps you should sit at the table until you can handle soda like a grownup," Pietro rolled his eyes at Remy.

"Sorry," Remy glared at Rogue who was laughing behind her napkin. "Anyway, Rogue got a fix on his vehicle." Pietro's eyes bugged out of his head and he sat bolt upright. "Yeah, Pietro, your poppa drives. A crappy ass blue bronco apparently. She also found where he abandoned it at that police station he attacked in California. We know now he's travelling by more conventional means, what that means for his powers I really don't want to speculate."

"That's impressive, Rogue," Wanda nodded encouragingly in her direction.

"Yeah," Rogue said, a touch of bitterness to her voice. "I'm pretty darn impressive." She and Wanda had yet to find comfortable footing as teammates and Simon had complicated matters infinitely. Rogue nodded towards Remy. "The Cajun flirted his way into the room Erik stayed in."

The Lehnsherr children were speechless and all sported identical expressions of wide-eyed shock directed towards Remy.

Lorna broke the silence first. "Wow. Nice work," she said proudly. She had battled to let him come along; her smile said she was happy to have been proven right.

Pietro leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed his temples with one hand. "You didn't take your shirt off, did you?" he asked tightly. Remy rolled his eyes and unplugged his phone, retrieving the laptop from the dresser.

"Give me a little credit. I can be a professional when called upon." He booted up the photos he took and looked sideways at Rogue who was biting her lower lip and flushing slightly. _That's right_, he thought. _So damn professional I found the best lead we had so far and still had time to make that girl scream my name and come on the bathroom counter. What more do these people want from me?_

"I wasn't questioning your professionalism," Pietro said in a vague unapologetic way. "Not exactly. But, you do look for any excuse to disrobe…"

Remy ignored him and jabbed the laptop keys angrily. "This is the mural of crazy your daddy left behind," he shoved the computer at Pietro. "Take a look, pass it around. I think it's pretty safe to say that map he left on the wall is his to-do list."

Lorna slipped off the bed and came to stand behind her brother; Wanda scooted her chair closer for a better look. Remy watched their faces while they flipped through the images he had captured. Their expressions were hard to describe, but if he had to come up with one word it would have been crestfallen. He turned and began rounding up the few things he had unpacked in their brief stay. They needed to get on the road. Or in the air. No point in hanging around Kansas anymore. Their next stop, Mountain Air California, was where Magneto had torn the local police station a new one in his mission for the big mutant payback. Rogue took his cue and began doing the same, a worried look on her face. When they were finished, they wordlessly shouldered their bags and left the room to load the car. They stepped down the stairs and into the night air.

Their trunk thudding closed broke the near silence of the deserted parking lot. Rogue sighed and hugged herself as she leaned against the car. Remy pushed his hands into his pockets and positioned himself next to her, feeling the warmth of her along his arm.

Remy spoke softly. "After everything he's done, all the pain he's caused, they still are shocked at what he's become?" It should have been a statement of fact, but he asked it sadly as a question, not sure he wanted her to answer.

"They still believe there's good left in him. They have to," she whispered sadly. "He's their father. How do you acknowledge that someone that made you is beyond all redemption? If he is, if there's nothin' left in his soul but a black, sick evil, what does that say about them? That they're evil too, rotten inside? They have to believe that the person they want so desperately to love is worth saving."

"They have to?" he asked huskily. She nodded. For the first time, Remy wasn't so sure Rogue was only talking about Magneto. Mystique, Rogue's terrorist foster mother, had done as much damage to her as Magneto had done to his children. Looking at Wanda, Lorna, and Pietro had to be like seeing herself in a twisted mirror.

"People can change, Remy. You better than anyone should know that I'll always believe that." He pulled her into his arms. Breathing deeply the smell of her hair, he rocked her slowly.

"One thing that ain't never going to change is my love for you, girl." He tucked her head under his chin and she laid her cheek against his chest.

"I'm beginning to understand that. Takes us hard-headed ones a lot longer to realize it."

"I'm not letting go this time," he whispered fiercely. "We're together and that's the end of it."

She wrapped her arms around his waist. "I love you, too, Remy."


	6. Chapter 6

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's note: Thanks so much for the reviews everybody! Glad you're all enjoying it so far!

**Chapter six**

"I don't like it."

Remy leaned back in his seat and sulked. He stubbornly set his chin and scowled out the window of Snow's fancy Cessna at the blanket of the Earth's clouds below. He, Lorna, and Wanda sat in the jet's cushy cabin sifting through their sources of information. Rogue and Pietro were on the flight deck, surely arguing about who was captaining the private plane. Both had nearly squealed in delight at the sight of the Cessna X-Factor's boss Harrison Snow had lent them for their mission and had spent their time on board babbling about engine speed and performance. They had come to a grudging truce since Rogue's temper tantrum and were bonding over their mutual fascination with the aircraft.

"You don't like anything," Lorna retorted, rustling through a stack of papers. Finding what she was after she triumphantly held it out to Remy. "You know I'm right. It can't be a coincidence."

Wanda, seated next to Lorna across a small table from Remy, uncrossed and re-crossed her legs. "We already know through the files Alex forwarded us that SHIELD pegged our father for two of the three incidents from the area surrounding the city of Mountain Air. He obliterated a police station in search of an accused murderer and separately attacked and eliminated several humans outside a tenement camp. Then, a nearby factory is leveled in a suspicious explosion the same week? You cannot tell me you believe there is not a connection."

"Eliminated," Remy murmured. "You say that so casually." He snatched the paper Lorna was still waving across the table and his eyes tore down the page. _Something isn't right here_. The report was of an explosion that had destroyed a factory some forty miles south of the California town Mountain Air, but the report was a newspaper article from the AP wire, not from the information they had been receiving via the Avengers. He raised his eyes to look over the paper at Wanda. "Why didn't this show up in the SHIELD files? You two are right, no way is this a coincidence. Seems kind of strange for their Magneto hunters to not at least check it out. This police report is real vague, too. I get that their emergency responders and investigators have been real busy and maybe they're withholding information until it's all said and done, but the details are seriously lacking. No cause, no estimate on damages, no list of injuries or otherwise. It's like they had a garbage can fire or something, not the whole plant blowing up."

"Suspicious in its exclusions, eh?" Lorna crooked a green eyebrow at him. Remy grunted and went back to his reading. It was going to be a full day and their clock was ticking. There was no way they were going to get near the gaping hole that was the Mountain Air police station, that much he was sure of. The national guard, SHIELD, state troopers, and anybody else who could wear a uniform was swarming all over what was left of the property. The 24 hour news stations had caught up with most of the witnesses and the reports they had received from SHIELD and the Avengers were overly thorough, all the i's dotted, t's crossed. This was the big one for the law enforcement types. By going after the police, Magneto had cemented his outlaw status and Remy bet this incident would be what any official charges against the villain would stem from. Tons of eyewitnesses, lots of casualties and collateral damage. He wanted them to at least peripherally canvas the area, get eyes on it and maybe chat up any friendly locals. _Nothing to get us noticed or cause a stir, Lorna should be able to handle it. _

His main concern for the day was checking out the homeless camp where Magneto had slaughtered several men in the dead of night. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. According to the SHIELD reports, the camp was a tent city that had housed hundreds of homeless people. _Why had he been there? What was he looking for?_ Magneto's actions had brought too much attention to the camp's illegal squatting and the local authorities had shut the makeshift city down and removed its residents. He wanted them to search for some of the people that had lived there, see if any had contact with their target. Wanda had thought of going to the local shelters and halfway houses where most of the women and children had probably been taken. She thought Pietro could join her and make a search of the fewer men's shelters in the area. Remy smiled slightly the corners of his mouth tugging up. Gee, that just left him and Rogue to visit the site of the camp and crime scene to look it over. _That's a shame, the two of us all alone…_

"Why are you smiling?" Lorna poked her finger into the middle of his paper. "It's a little inappropriate, y'know. Makes you look a little crazy."

Flipping the paper down, he grinned widely. "Can't be the odd man out, chere."

She screwed up her face and stuck out her tongue. "Bite me," she growled.

"Sorry, chere," Remy laughed. "Couple weeks ago, I would have been all for it, but now…" he spread his hands wide. Lorna sat back in her seat in a huff and crossed her arms, but Wanda blinked at Remy as if she were just looking at him for the first time.

"Have I missed something?" She asked and looked from Remy to Lorna and back again.

"Remy and Rogue are back on again after he had his way with her and your boyfriend in Kansas," Lorna smiled serenely, but Wanda's eyes bulged from her face. Remy's jaw dropped. _How the hell did she know that?_ He scrambled to defend himself.

"Come on now, had nothing to do with Simon…just between me and Rogue. Just us getting things back on track."

"Oh, come on!" Lorna laughed, clearly enjoying making Remy uncomfortable. "It had a little to do with Simon!"

"Just the body he's renting a room in!" Remy said defensively. Wanda furrowed her brow and opened her mouth several times as if to say something.

"Wanda?" Lorna asked and laid a hand on the Witch's shoulder.

"I just…" Wanda looked slightly embarrassed. "I mean…when you say…we are talking about…" her face flushed as red as her costume and if Remy weren't worried she was going to hex his balls away, she was almost cute.

"Sex, Wanda. Yes, we're talking about sex," Lorna said slowly. "Specifically Remy banging Rogue on the bathroom counter in that nasty hotel room."

"Lorna!" Remy yelped, horrified.

"Oh for god's sake…" Lorna rolled her eyes and sat back again. "You can't act like a prude now!"

"Lorna," Wanda pursed her lips. "I wasn't asking for details. I just…" she sighed and turned toward Remy. "Actually, though the romanticism may be a trifle lacking, and I question both the sturdiness and cleanliness of the hotel's bathroom counter, I am…happy…for the two of you." _Damn, was she making a joke?_ He wasn't sure, but Wanda continued "I am happy for you, and knowing Simon, as long as he wasn't directly involved, he probably is, too." She reached across the table and took hold of a stunned Remy's hand. "Anna has been…bereft since joining the Avengers. Charles's death had a much more profound effect on her than even she has come to realize. She has been too angry, too hard on herself for things that are not her fault. I have grown very fond of her, as have many of her teammates. If she would let us in instead of pushing us away, we could be almost family. She deserves to be happy, to be with someone that reignites her passion for life. Unlike Pietro, I do believe my father cares for her, but only as much as he is capable of caring for anyone. It is a painful truth I have had to come to terms with, but my father is not capable of truly loving anyone but himself and his cause. You love Anna, and the way I see her light up when you are near her, I know that she loves you, too."

Not knowing what to say, Remy leaned over the table and kissed the back of Wanda's hand. "Merci, chere, for your kind words. Good to know that girl does still have people looking out for her."

Squeezing his hand as she released it, Wanda sat back in her seat. "Well, anything else I should know about? No? Then back to the business at hand, namely, how should we proceed concerning the factory? Any thoughts?"

Lorna chewed the inside of her cheek thoughtfully before she spoke. "The explosion may have purposefully been downplayed by SHIELD, kept out of the files they shared with the Avengers. If Magneto was involved, maybe something really bad happened that they weren't willing to communicate. We know his pattern, right? He has been following up on perpetrators of violence against mutants. It could be he stumbled on something really, really scary that SHIELD is trying to hide from the Avengers."

"That actually makes sense." Remy tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. Lorna was still new to the whole squad leader thing and sometimes her thought process was erratic at best. Remy had been doing his best to be supportive, and at times she showed a great deal of promise.

Lorna continued. "We can proceed in a similar fashion, I think. Whether it's SHIELD guarding the site or police, they'll probably have a surveillance perimeter in place. If we wait until night, come in from on high so to speak, me and Rogue flying you all in…" She waved a hand airily.

Remy nodded. "Yeah. That could work. You and Wanda could disable any sensor equipment of a more high tech nature if it is SHIELD. We can use the night vision glasses from our X-Factor costumes, I'm sure there are spares in the jet somewhere. Search the area, if anybody tries to stop us, up and out the same way."

Standing and stretching her lower back, Wanda nodded her ascent. "You two hash out a basic plan. We'll get the details figured out once we land." She stepped towards the flight deck. "I'll see how long until we touchdown, make sure these two haven't killed each other yet."

As soon as Wanda had disappeared into the cockpit, Remy chucked his paper at Lorna who erupted in peals of laughter. "Nice, chere, real nice. Thanks a lot!"

Rolling with laughter, Lorna clutched her stomach. "Your…FACE!" she howled so hard she snorted which only set her off louder. Remy pouted as she almost fell from her chair. She managed to compose herself and continued breathlessly. "She would have…found out eventually!"

Growling, Remy scrubbed his hands down his face. "Yeah, eventually. When I was hundreds of miles away. Thought she was gonna use her power to magic away my nutsack."

Lorna started laughing uncontrollably again. She tried to make a serious face and mimicked Wanda firing a hex bolt. "No…more…manhood!" She roared, tears sending her mascara down her face in black streaks. Remy finally joined her as Rogue exited the cockpit and sauntered down the aisle.

"Oh!" Lorna bit her lip and straightened her hair. "Rogue! Hi!" She frantically rubbed her palm across her cheek in an attempt to wipe away her smeared makeup. Remy smiled in satisfaction at the tiny bit of karmic retribution Lorna was receiving for her big mouth. Making Remy mad was one thing, pissing off Rogue was quite another. Annoying as Lorna was, she had raised a good point about Simon. It was probably past time for him to get Anna to open up about Wonderman and the effect his residence was having on her. Rogue stopped and stood next to him and he wrapped an arm around her warm waist. She kissed the top of his head and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Everything all right out here?" Rogue asked, eyeing Lorna suspiciously.

"Yeah, sure," Lorna shot Rogue a megawatt smile but still looked rather raccoon eyed. "Remy just told a really funny joke. Nearly peed my pants. Quite the kidder you've got there." _No need to rat Lorna out now, her time will come._

Remy turned his head towards Rogue. "Captain Quicksilver kick you out of the cockpit?" he asked, Rogue moving to the seat next to him. She ran a long-fingered hand across the papers spread along the table and selected one.

"Got a little crowded in there," she said and began to read.

"I thought it took two people to fly the Cessna?" Lorna asked coldly. She had been overly concerned about the safety of the airplane, worrying over every scrape and scratch. She had nearly had a meltdown when Remy had forgotten to use a coaster. He knew her ass was on the line with Snow on this one, but it wasn't like he had poured red wine on the carpet or lit the cabin on fire. She needed to lighten up.

Continuing to read, Rogue replied without lifting her eyes from the paper. "Not when one of the pilots is your pain-in-the-ass brother. Moves real fast in case you didn't notice." She crossed a leg and swung it impatiently. Remy's eyes hungrily watched her ankle high boot bounce back and forth. He moved his gaze up to her slim legging-clad calf and to her thigh. He looked higher and found Rogue glowering at him. "Can I help you, sugar?" She asked, sounding slightly miffed, but Remy could see a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"When you swing your leg like that, makes your breasts dance real nice. I like it." He grinned wolfishly as Lorna suddenly stood.

"You find that charming?" she asked Rogue and waved her hands, walking towards the bathroom. "I'll be right back. Keep it clean, kids."

"Think you're funny, swamp rat?" Rogue asked in her most serious voice, her eyes betraying her amusement.

Remy chuckled. "I know you do." He leaned closer, took the paper from her and set it down. He cupped her cheek in his gloved hand. "Don't let Pietro get you too riled up, mon amour. He'll get tired of his new toy soon."

She turned her face and kissed his palm. "I know. Still don't like him thinking he can boss me around." She sighed deeply and closed her eyes.

Remy risked moving closer. "He's just still pissed you got the drop on him at Serval. Doesn't like admitting there are faster things out there than him."

"Yeah. S'pose you're right. Think he'll get over it?"

Remy laughed huskily, their lips dancing centimeters apart. "Do you care?" he asked, tasting her breath.

Rogue sighed shakily. "No," she whispered, so close. In that heartbeat, he didn't care about her powers, about their mission. All he wanted was the taste of her lips on his. He leaned closer…

"Rogue!" Wanda emerged from the cockpit and Rogue stiffened, pulling back from Remy. "Pietro is ready to land and could use your help." The Witch smiled encouragingly at the couple and took her seat.

Rogue raised an eyebrow in disbelief at Remy but stood anyway. "Thanks, Wanda. Get yourselves settled. If Lorna ain't out in a couple minutes, give her a heads up." She met Remy's eyes with a look that promised later. He watched her walk away with that special ass-wiggle she put in when she wanted to torture him. He smiled and laced his hands behind his head and Lorna took her seat. He sighed. Her powers were going to be hard to deal with again, but they'd manage. He'd do whatever it took to have her in his life again.


	7. Chapter 7

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

**Chapter seven**

"Gone. Just gone."

Rogue shielded the top of her silver aviator sunglasses with one hand and looked across the acres and acres of nearly empty fields. "Doesn't look like they left a damn thing behind."

Crouching in a patch of matted grass, Remy nodded. "You don't have much, you make sure you take it all, I guess." He stood and brushed the dirt from his pant legs. "I don't know that we'll get much from combing through all of this, but I guess we better at least take a lap around." They walked in companionable silence for a few minutes. He had sent the twins to search local shelters and halfway houses, Lorna to case the local police station, leaving him and Rogue the tedious task of examining the abandoned wasteland spread before them. He wanted nothing more than to savor a rare moment alone, but guilt weighed heavily on his mind when he glanced sideways at her. _I guess now is as good a time as any, _Remy thought and dove in feet first. "Is it different this time?" he asked carefully. Rogue abruptly stopped and met his eyes over her sunglasses.

"Is _what_ different, sugar?"

"Simon. That passenger in your head, you've hardly mentioned his name since we left Serval. I want to know, is it different, is he different than with Carol?" She chewed her lip and ran a hand through her unruly hair. Remy stood patiently in the warm midday sun and waited for her to answer.

"No…and yes…" She began hesitantly. "I can hear him, but only sometimes, and I think it's the same for him. It's like, I know he's there and his powers are there, but he's not always…present, I guess. It's so hard to describe, kind of like having a roommate that works the night shift, that feeling of someone else sharing your space, but, I'll tell you this, he's definitely his own man. He's bossy and opinionated when he feels the need, chimes in loudly when there's something he wants to put his two cents in about, like at Serval when I tried to take off he didn't so much grab hold of my body as scream bloody murder for me to stop, but it's different than when I absorbed Carol. He and I seem to be like oil and water, mixed together but still separate. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he volunteered, even though we didn't know the consequences. He came willingly, where Carol and I fought tooth and nail and never stopped. At first, with Carol, the lines were so blurred inside I couldn't tell where she ended and I began. Eventually, the persona I absorbed from her became independent enough to take control of my body whenever she felt like it, which was way too often." She started walking slowly and Remy stepped with her. "Bad enough to be hijacked by some crazy ass villain I had absorbed, but to have it happen over and over from some mistake in my head…" Shaking her head, she sighed. "For now, Simon spends most of his time tucked in a back corner of my subconscious and he seems all right with that. He's been a pacifist the last few years, not wanting to join in the fighting, and from what I gather, he sees our crappy cohabitation as a way for him to indirectly contribute his powers to the good fight without him having to do the swinging."

"Maybe he's content with that for now, but we need to find a solution for the two of you as soon as we get back from this bullshit. There may come a time when he's not so satisfied sitting on the sidelines." He reached down and squeezed her gloved hand. "I'm selfish. Don't like sharing you with another man, but it's definitely nice to see you a little less breakable thanks to him." Rogue smiled and ducked her head, and Remy brought her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. "I think we found all we gonna find in this field, eh?"

Rogue nodded. "Agreed. Hopefully, the kids are having better luck than us today. Search the buildings over there and scoot?" She jerked a thumb towards the broken down shacks that formed a vague perimeter at the edge of the field. According to the reports, this was where her ex-boyfriend and current megalomaniac had murdered a group of humans in the name of his magnificent cause. Remy tried not to let it get to him, that his own past deeds had caused such strife and animosity between him and Rogue over the years but a mass murderer like Magneto seemingly got a free pass straight into her panties. It didn't hurt like it used to, but it sure as hell stung to be reminded of her seeming double standards.

"Buildings, chere? You're being a bit generous, aren't you?" They walked towards the shacks, the row of shanties all that remained of the Hoover Ville settlement formerly known as Down Acres, nestled in the outskirts of Mountain Air, California. Up until recently, the encampment had been the makeshift home to hundreds of down-on-their-luck families just looking to survive, but all of that changed the day Magneto's shadow had crossed their turf.

"Surprised the police ain't still watching this place…" They picked their way over the pathway of broken pallets laid amongst the broken and blanched grass where the camp had once stood.

Remy grunted. "Nothing left to watch. They know who did it, and then they cleaned everybody else out." They reached the shacks, basically corrugated steel sheds on cinderblocks, the tiny grimy windows reflecting the fluffy clouds lazily spilling across the sky. He stepped up to the first door. "Huh," he jiggled the handle, but it refused to turn. "Locked." Rogue snickered behind him.

"Want me to break it down for you?" She teased playfully.

"No need to get insulting, chere." He pulled a simple lock pick from his jeans pocket. "I can't get this open, they take away my guild card…" He ran his fingers along the lock and the seal of the door. It was a new lock, and of better quality than the structure it was attached to.

"Locked." Rogue murmured over his shoulder. "But who the hell has the key?" The tumblers clicked into place and Remy pushed open the door. He flipped his shades up on his head, hoping to give his eyes a second to adjust, but the pungent smell of alcohol and vomit rolled out through the open door and he stepped back.

"Ladies first?" He held the door open and bowed as Rogue strode up and into the room, crinkling her nose.

"More like invulnerable mutants first?"

"Jean-Luc didn't raise no fool."

"I'm gonna let that one dro…" the sentence died on her lips and she gasped in surprise. Remy whipped his head up and jumped in behind her.

"Mon dieu…" Rogue had covered her mouth with her hand and he did the same. His eyes strained in the low amount of light filtering through the dirty window and open door, but the shape of a man had become visible against the back wall of the structure, wrapped in a dirty sleeping bag on the floor.

"Is he…?"Rogue gagged behind her glove. Remy stepped around her and lightly touched her shoulder.

"Breath through your mouth, chere," he said quietly and knelt next to the body. The man was old and weathered, wrapped from the neck down in a stained and torn sleeping bag. His stringy grey locks began at his receding hairline and dropped past his shoulders from there. His matching beard hung down to his chest, and he had the small and scrappy look of someone who fought for every bite of food that had passed his lips. The smell was strong, but it wasn't the smell of a rotting corpse. Remy had stumbled too many times on the face of death growing up on the streets of New Orleans, but, despite his sickly pallor, this man had yet to shuffle off this mortal coil. Steeling himself, Remy leaned forward to listen for his heartbeat.

"Remy?" Rogue's footsteps advanced haltingly forward, but he held up a hand to stop her.

"Hush," he whispered and grudgingly placed his ear against the soiled blanket. He stilled himself and after a few seconds caught the slow, ragged rhythm of the man's heartbeat, felt the rise and fall of his chest. "He's breathin'…" Rogue let out a shaky sigh and crouched beside him.

"Is he hurt, or just drunk?" Remy raised his head and took as deep of breath as he could, shaking his head.

"I don't know, chere. I don't see any visible wounds, but maybe under the blanket?" The stench emanating from the man was a hot cocktail of alcohol, urine, vomit, and sweat. Remy wiped the tears that had sprang to his eyes with the back of his hand. "We should probably call an ambulance and then get out of here before they come for him."

Rogue moved her hands to the man's prone form. "We can't just leave him," her face was screwed up in a determined scowl that was adorable even with the situation. She untucked the filthy blanket and folded it down to examine the man's body further. Remy pulled his phone from his pocket, but thought better of it.

"We can't call from our cells. Somebody could trace it back to us. Do you think there's a pay phone anywhere?"

"A pay phone? Maybe five years ago…but now?" Rogue muttered under her breath and moved the man's beard aside.

"We can't stay here, chere," Remy stood and gripped her shoulder, but she angrily shrugged it off.

"God dammit, Remy, he needs our help!" She bellowed, and the man's eyes snapped open in wide-eyed horror at the sound. He screamed, his arms flailing, sending Rogue back pedaling onto her ass. Remy's heart jumped into his throat and he sprang forward, but was too late to untangle his love from the twisted jumble of filthy blankets and limbs that wrapped themselves around her.

"No! You can't take me!" The man shrieked and thrashed. "This is our home! You can't do this!" Remy couldn't keep a hold of him long enough to pull him off. "We have nowhere else to g…"Remy's fingers dug forcefully into the man's shoulders but he felt him go rigid beneath his fingers, then limp. _Fuck_, he thought, and hauled the man's body and covering off the still struggling Rogue.

"Anna? Anna!" He shook her slightly and she stopped flailing, but her eyes were unfocused slits. His gaze darted to the unconscious man on the shack's floor. "You okay, chere?" Her smile widened when she spotted him, and to Remy's surprise, she giggled.

"Jus'…fine, sugar," she slurred, her head lolling to one side.

"Is he okay?" Remy pointed his chin towards the man. She nodded awkwardly.

"Samuel? Was right…jus'…drunk, sugar." Remy sighed. _At least we can leave him to sleep it off, _he thought. He helped a wobbly Rogue to her feet and, making sure the man was comfortable before they left, shut the door and helped her down the steps. They'd find a public phone and send the police his way.

"Not so fast…" she hissed and staggered on the bottom step. Remy snaked an arm around her waist and prodded her forward. _Didn't think alcohol affected the invulnerable. Maybe she just absorbed his state of mind? _

"Sorry, chere. We may have overstayed our welcome." She laid her head on his shoulder as they walked and she started humming tunelessly. "Did you get anything from the guy? Seemed like he lived here. Samuel you said his name was?" Her song stopped and she took a deep, shaky breath.

"The men Eric killed? They took people from Down Acres…came in the night and drug 'em away, people without families, people nobody would miss. He was their leader, he was supposed to watch out for everybody here, but, they took them anyway. No one knew why, nobody talked about it, the men just came and they took them. And Samuel let them." She buried her face into Remy's shoulder. "Ain't no amount of liquor gonna drown out that kind of guilt," she whispered.


	8. Chapter 8

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

**Chapter eight**

"Nervous, sugar?"

Remy turned to Rogue and admired the view through the green cast of his night vision glasses. The skintight black bodysuit followed her curves better than a Ferrari racing the Autobahn and she smirked back at him and crossed her arms under her chest, her own gaze raking up his similarly clad form. The current X-Factor uniforms were colored a mustard yellow for some inexplicable reason, but he had made damn sure to grab appropriately dark working clothes for all of them that included black caps for Anna, Lorna, and Pietro.

"Who, me?" He sighed deeply, the crisp smell of the forest, dirt and trees and the must of decaying leaves, intermingled with the nearby acrid burn of plastics and chemicals. He wasn't nervous exactly, merely impatient. Pietro was running a reconnaissance loop and scouting their target while the rest of the team waited. _Never thought I'd be thinking that the fastest mutant in the world needs to hurry the hell up_, he thought ruefully. They had all struck out today, wasted a whole lot of time with very little to show for it and Remy was antsy to get on with it and get the hell out of Mountain Air.

A branch snapped behind him and he heard Lorna swear loudly. He whipped his head to the sound. "A little stealth, if you please?" One of the problems Remy had never been able to rectify as an X-Man was the team's overall lack of subtlety. Besides Logan, Betsy, and a handful of other associates, most of the mutants he considered friends and family barreled through missions like bulls in a china shop, if the bulls shot fireworks from their fingertips or turned to organic steel.

He helped Lorna up from the tangle of branches that had knocked her to her knees. "The glasses aren't just to look cool, y'know? It'd help if you put them on." Lorna huffed and yanked her arm from his gentlemanly grasp.

"Bite me," she muttered, but he saw her pull the glasses from where they dangled along the neckline of her costume and put them on, tucking the temples under her dark cap. Wanda joined them, and the four mutants shifted anxiously in silence on the blanket of rotting leaves that littered the forest floor.

"We'll have to fly pretty high to be able to avoid detection," Lorna ran her fingers down the arm of her bodysuit. "These things are insulated, right?"

"Oui," Remy replied. _He_ wasn't nervous, but he could feel Lorna's agitation in the undertones of her voice. "You sure you can carry us all that high and that fast?" Rogue could fly and easily carry passengers with her super strength, but Simon's power tended to leave a bubbly trail that, even though it was dark, ran the risk of being detected visually or as an anomaly on radar. They had decided it would be less risky for Lorna to haul them all skyward and use her magnetic powers to scramble any detection.

"It was my suggestion, wasn't it?" She retorted tartly.

"That doesn't answer my…" Rogue stepped between them and muffled his snark with her gloved hand.

"All right, y'all, let's ratchet this down a notch." Remy scowled over the frame of his glasses, but Rogue just pursed her lips into a hard line. "Thought only Pietro got your panties this twisted?" Her hand still covering his mouth, Remy debated nipping at her fingers, but the whoosh of sudden wind grew steadily louder. "Speak o' the devil," she lowered her hand but cocked an eyebrow warningly at Remy.

Pietro skidded to a halt in a flurry of leaves and dirt that left the waiting mutants coughing and sputtering.

"Seriously, Pietro?" Lorna spat muck to the ground and brushed the dust from the front of her bodysuit. Even Wanda, who normally tolerated the extremes of her twin's rude behavior, shot daggers at him for the sandy shower.

Pietro merely shrugged. "I didn't choose to rendezvous in the middle of a National Geographic special."

Remy held out a hand expectantly. "Well? Report?"

Pietro crossed his arms insolently. "The facility is thirty miles south of us as the proverbial crow flies. Between here and there is little more than forest and fields, no residential or any other commercial property. Isolated."

Dragging a hand across his chin, Remy nodded. "Police presence?"

"There are two highways that run near the site. A police perimeter has been established with officers stationed at ten and five miles. It appears they are waiting for daylight to resume their investigation. The property itself is guarded by a small handful of bodies near the entrance. Their equipment appeared to be standard SHIELD issue."

"Tell me you did not go any closer than that!" They had talked about the dangers inherent in sending a scout. They needed recon, but couldn't tip their hat, draw any undue attention to their activities. All they needed was a short window to do a cursory search of the destroyed facility in an effort to ascertain whether Magneto had indeed been the responsible party. If he had, Remy hoped that they'd find some clue that could point them to where he was going next or as to why SHIELD had worked so hard to keep the incident quiet.

"As per your orders," Pietro intoned sarcastically, "I took a position at the edge of the woods closest to the property and zoomed in using the binocular function of my glasses. No one was the wiser. If Lorna lifts us from this point up to a cruising altitude, flies us straight there, then lands us in the thick of it, we should remain undetected. We are more than a match for any garden variety SHIELD agent."

"With Wanda's help," Lorna chimed in.

"Yes." The Witch, who had been surprisingly tight lipped, stepped closer to Pietro. "My probability altering and illusion casting abilities should guarantee the guard's attentions are focused elsewhere."

"Okay," Remy dusted his hands together, "daylight's coming. Let's get this show on the road." The four mutants circled Polaris. Her arms outstretched, she used her power to manipulate the magnetic field surrounding each of them, tugging them off the forest floor.

"This might not be real pleasant, folks. I'm going to have to move us fast and work to buffer us from electronic detection at the same time. It'll be pretty rough due to the cold and lack of oxygen as high up as we're going, and I'll shield you the best I can, but my primary focus is going to be speed, not comfort." Remy's fingers found Rogue's from habit rather than any fear, and she squeezed his back.

"I'll catch you if she drops you." She lowered her glasses and winked. Remy opened his mouth, but felt his body yanked skyward, the sensation the tug of a wicked rollercoaster. The rush pulled the air from his lungs with icy fingers and his stomach dropped to the tip of his toes. Just as abruptly they halted and his insides jerked violently with the shift. He opened his eyes and caught sight of Rogue, her dazzling smile so wide it split her face ear to ear.

"Don't look down, sugar," she teased, so of course he did at the exact moment Lorna switched their trajectory forward at the same slamming speed. _Fuck!_ Remy gritted his teeth to keep his lunch where it should be. Any other time, flying free among the clouds would have been the best ride ever, and normally heights didn't make him squeamish, but he wondered if Lorna's seeming lack of finesse was a passive aggressive retaliation to his earlier comments. They slammed to a stop again.

"Ground floor, please," he muttered to no one but himself and his stomach lurched to his hairline at their rapid descent. They landed on the ground roughly and Lorna released her hold on their bodies. Remy wobbled and an unaffected Rogue caught him before he tumbled flat on his ass. He noticed Wanda was just as shaky as he was, but Lorna, Pietro, and Rogue seemed to handle the wild ride just fine.

"Wanda…" A concerned Pietro looped his arm around the Scarlet Witch. She leaned on his shoulder gratefully.

"I'll be fine. I just need a moment…to catch my breath…" Keeping one hand on Pietro's shoulder, she raised the other and chanted a nearly silent incantation. "I've cast an illusion that should shield us from any prying eyes. If one of the guards surrounding the perimeter approaches, they should see, for all intents and purposes, only the destruction before us." She brushed a loose strand of hair from her forehead and stepped away from her brother, her composure regained. "The illusion covers sound to an extent, but do keep things fairly quiet just to be safe."

Lorna had deposited them in what would have been the facilities' parking lot. The complex, which from online photos could have been any anonymous pharmaceutical company or office building, the cement slab stories striped through with windows like layers on a cake, was nearly unrecognizable. The building had collapsed in on itself from its center, and the remaining wreckage lay in massive twisted piles scorched black, in some cases still smoking.

Remy gestured and gave his directions. "Wanda, Pietro, circle left, I'll go right, search the perimeter. Lorna, start sifting through the heart of the debris. Rogue'll assist you on some of the larger pieces and she'll be available to any of you that need help." The mutants nodded in understanding. "Remember," he cautioned, "we need to be ready to rabbit at a moment's notice. We can't afford to get caught in the act here, so if there's real trouble, Lorna, be prepared to yank us all out of here." Rogue stepped toward Polaris and spoke evenly.

"We need to know what they were doin' here, and why Eric would have been interested. Keep an eye out for computer parts: hard drives, laptops, CDs, 'cause I doubt any paper files survived this mess."

They moved, and Remy slowly picked his way around the edge of the collapsed structure, stepping carefully over sections of chain link fence that were strewn across the lawn with the same casual randomness of tossed playing cards. _She's already made up her mind he did this_, Remy thought, and had to agree with Rogue's train of thought. What was absolutely clear was that this hadn't been an explosion, not as described in the reports they had read. Yes, there had been a fire, but the debris field wasn't consistent with a blast of any kind. The building had collapsed, but it didn't look like the remnants of an implosion either. Remy shivered. It looked like something, something big, had clawed its way out of the building from the inside out. Could it have been Magneto? Were his powers strong enough to inflict that kind of damage? He brushed away the thought and dug into a pile of unrecognizable shrapnel. It didn't take long for him to get sweaty, filthy, and irritated. He was finding nothing salvageable and looked up from his drudgery. His eyes found Polaris and Rogue.

Lorna hovered a few feet above the thickest wreckage, her arms waving like the conductor of an orchestra. Chunks of debris swirled and danced before her in the eerie green light of his lenses. A slab of concrete shifted beneath her and rose, revealing Rogue at its base, and she hoisted the massive piece as easily as a normal woman lifted a yoga mat. Remy had to shake his head in disbelief. She had been strong before, her Ms. Marvel powers had made her a force to be reckoned with, but Wonderman's powers seemed to be that much stronger, that much faster.

Remy wedged his fingers under his own piece of concrete and heaved. However, he had chosen the wrong piece on the Jenga tower and the rubble shifted, knocking him on his behind. His glasses flew from his face and skittered to a noisy stop behind him.

"Ah, hell," he rolled over and felt gingerly along the pitch black. "Call me Velma," he muttered as his fingers brushed the frame. He snatched them triumphantly and blew the dust from them. Now that his eyes had adjusted slightly to the dark, he noticed a strange reddish light tugging at his peripheral vision, the glow glinting off the mirror coating of his lenses. He swallowed hard and turned to find, to his horror, two glowing red eyes staring from the depths of the rubble unearthed from his botched excavation.

"MU…TANT…" The cold computerized voice clicked and whirred to life. Remy froze for a heartbeat, watching in mute shock, pieces of wreckage snaking from all around him through the darkness towards the searing red eyes. He scrambled backwards across hunks of metal and ash.

"MU…TANTS…" He bit back an uncharacteristic scream when a half-formed robotic arm, barely more than a metallic skeleton, snapped from the wreckage and gripped his ankle in an iron hold. He jerked to free himself and fumbled his glasses into place, pulling the gruesomely assembling torso of an omega sentinel with him.

"Mes amis!" He bellowed. "A sentinel!" His mind whirred furiously as he reached for the nearest chargeable object. The revival of the Omega Sentinels would have been a good enough reason for Magneto to get involved and for SHIELD to keep it from the Avengers, but there was a problem here. As far as Remy knew, Omega Sentinels formed from living tissue, and nothing human could have survived the heat of the fire that had razed that building to the ground. Once created, could the robotic components reform even after that much damage? Had the facility made some sort of warped breakthrough in sentinel technology? Remy charged a handful of debris and zipped it towards the half-formed creature. He struggled, but finally managed to pull his leg free. Turning to face it again, he heard Lorna's bloodcurdling scream rip across the night. He risked a glance in her direction, and stared, horrified, as something dark and large rose from the earth. Chunks of rubble snaked towards Polaris and Rogue, the newly forming behemoth calling pieces of itself as it stood, already three stories tall and rising.

A playing card appeared in his hand and he aimed it at his own adversary only to watch, flabbergasted, when the creature slid across the ground towards the women and was claimed as part of the hulking monstrosity now looming and lurching over them. Remy vaulted the debris piles between them.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" Lorna screamed and rose higher into the air, dodging a clumsy blow from the creature, the eyesore shaking as each new section snapped into place.

"We can't!" Rogue barked. "It's awake now, it'll just follow us or endanger civilians! We gotta take it apart while we still can!"

"TERMINATE…MUTANTS…" the robot lurched forward awkwardly, still barely a mechanical frame.

"You don't get it! I can't feel it, the parts it's building itself from are mostly non-ferrous, I can't get ahold of it, can't rip it apart!"

"Maybe you can't…!" Rogue flung herself at her prey. Remy ran at Wanda and Pietro where they came into view.

"Wanda, keep up your illusion! Keep the cops and SHIELD out of this any way you can, keep them safe! Pietro, watch her back!" For once, Pietro didn't argue. Remy hated to keep a heavy hitter like Wanda away from the fight and worried that maybe he, Lorna, and Rogue wouldn't be able to handle this thing, but it couldn't be helped. They couldn't allow humans to get involved in this mess and Wanda's powers stood the best chance of keeping them away and keeping them safe. The twins dashed towards the trees. "All kinds of metal lying here, Lorna! Use it!" Remy screamed at her and unleashed a charged brace of cards. Rogue danced with the giant robot, dodging its now functioning lasers and arms. This thing was no regular Omega Sentinel and wasn't your garden variety killer robot either. The creature was easily five stories tall and still rising. _Master Mold_, the thought ran cold through Remy's bowels.

His cards exploded on the machine's chest, dead center, and it staggered, giving Rogue the opening she had been looking for. Landing on its shoulder, she wrenched its arm from the socket in a shower of sparks, then moved to the creature's head. The sentinel continued to pull its missing pieces from the building's wreckage.

Lorna slammed holes into its robotic hide using the melted frames of office chairs and windows, Remy peppering it with card after card. Rogue was straining at its neck, the screeching and tearing of its components interrupted by her scream of pain as an electrical charge arced through her body.

"Son of a bitch!" She growled, more angry than hurt, and finally wrenched the head free. In a rage that would have done Wolverine proud, she continued to tear the thing apart with her bare hands, pulling back its metallic skin to expose the electrical mechanisms underneath. "Heads up, Cajun!" She screamed in alarm, and Remy flipped backwards, a hunk of the robot slamming the ground where he had stood a moment before. What looked like a conference room table pummeled through the robot's abdomen courtesy of Lorna, and the headless monster collapsed into the rubble in a disjointed heap. An unrelenting Rogue shredded at the behemoth though the robot had stilled beneath her.

"Take it easy, Rogue!" Polaris yelled. "It's over!"

"Not hardly, sugar! You watched the thing form itself out of rubble and dust, it's gonna keep reforming unless we can figure out a way to dismantle it permanently!" Remy moved to step over the piece that had almost made him into a Cajun pancake, but instead placed a hand against its slick surface. His power did not allow him to charge organic material, but the Omega Sentinels were clearly no longer entirely composed of organic parts. If he could feel his way through its molecules, separate the organic from the inorganic…

Over the sound of Rogue's continued destruction, he concentrated, sensing his kinetic ability's connection with more of the material at his fingertips than he expected. After a few gut churning seconds, the hunk glowed a satisfying magenta, the effort leaving him shaking and sweaty.

"Remy!" He held his hand in place and looked towards Rogue where she was perched on the machine's blown out chest, her hands a tangle of cables and wires. "You can charge this thing!? Can you blow the rest of it?" Inspiration hit him like a two by four, though he wished it were any other way, knew what asking would cost her.

"Non, petite," he called back the charge, "but you can."

"Like hell!" She snarled.

"No arguments, chere. Yes, I can charge it, but I'd never survive the blast, and even if I did, I'd need Lorna or you to get me clear. This thing needs to be blasted apart on a molecular level or it's just gonna keep coming. You can borrow my power, waste the thing, then get yourself clear without singeing a hair on that pretty head of yours. Lorna can get me and the Wonder-twins out of here before you detonate it." As if on cue, Wanda and Pietro stepped just into view at the edge of the parking lot. Rogue fumed, biting her lower lip like she did when she was fixing to argue with him, but Remy knew it was the right call and knew that she did, too.

"Fine," she replied curtly. Lorna motioned for Wanda and Pietro to join them. "Make it good, Cajun." Her words bordered on rude, but her voice trembled. Remy drew her into his arms and ran the back of his hand along her cheek.

"Always do, mon amour," he replied raggedly.

"You get them straight out of here, Lorna, and back to our rendezvous point," Rogue said more forcefully, her eyes locked with Remy's. "I'll come when I'm able." Remy could hear the shifting of debris behind them. The robot was already working to reform itself; it was now or never. "Ready?" Rogue whispered. He leaned close enough to feel her warm breath against his lips.

"Take it all, Anna." Her mouth, her soft lips, met his for a beautiful moment before he felt the pull of her powers, but he deepened the kiss, parted her lips with his tongue, devouring as much of her as he could in a feverish passion before he slumped to the ground.


	9. Chapter 9

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's note: Thanks everybody for the reviews!

**Chapter nine**

"Why didn't we just bring Rogue?" whispered Lorna from behind him, her voice muffled as she slipped a scrub top over her head. "Her powers would have made questioning him a whole lot simpler." Remy waited to turn until she was decent and adjusted the drawstring of his own thin blue pants.

He grunted, non-committal. "Here. Your wig's all crooked." Through the dim light of the hospital supply closet a tumble of green hair was visible beneath the blunt brunette bob wig that was Lorna's disguise. Remy reached forward and tried to push it under the wig.

"Stop it," she said and swatted at his hand. "That's not going to work, you're just making it worse." Handing him the wig she stripped off the skull cap she wore, her neon hair a matted mess beneath it. She twisted her long locks and tucked them back under the tight cap. "I'll assume since you're ignoring my question that it has something to do with the fact that we're interrogating a Marauder?"

Holding the wig out to her, Remy gritted his teeth. "According to the report, John Greycrow was tortured by your father for hours. You think with her powers all wonky like they are I want her to absorb that kind of pain? You know how uncomfortable she is using it on people. Between Down Acres and our little throw down with the sentinels we already been pushing her too hard." Remy crossed his arms defiantly and stared her down in the near darkness. _Sentinels._ Remy's insides squirmed uneasily. He wasn't entirely sure they had made the right decision after their tussle with the mutant hunting monstrosities they had unearthed outside of Mountain Air, but he had done what he thought was best, what would keep them the safest. It had only been a couple of days ago, but the raw panic he had felt that night, the fear, still made his heart pound erratically in his chest every time he replayed the events. When his consciousness had finally rocketed to the surface on that forest floor, his ears groggily registering a fantastic explosion that had ripped through the still of the night, terror had gripped him with fingers of ice. Coming to, he had nearly become hysterical, realizing that his being awake meant Rogue had lost his powers, that he had sent the woman he loved alone after a five story killing machine. Lorna had calmed him, fussed and fretted over him, helped him to sit up, and together the two had counted each agonizing second until Wanda had spotted Rogue in the pre-dawn sky. When his love had landed, the expression on her face had been as ashen as the soot darkening her hair, a sight Remy wouldn't soon forget.

"Nothing left but a hole in the ground," was all she had been able to say. They had gone round and round over their next move, talked themselves in circles. Sentinels had been more than any of them had expected and maybe more than they could handle. If they had alerted the Avengers to the discovery SHIELD had been hiding from them in that California factory, their mission would have been over, a failure, and they would have been forced to return home, something Wanda and Lorna had not been prepared to do. They could hardly keep the encounter a secret, it would have endangered too many lives. In the end, for better or worse, they had decided to pass the information on to those better equipped to deal with the situation, and Remy had grudgingly conceded that they should continue their hunt for Magneto while they were still able. Rogue had called Hank McCoy, the Beast, fellow X-Man and sometime Avenger, and relayed what they had found, knowing he would find the best possible solution while still keeping their names out of it, ensuring their mission stayed hush-hush. _Let people of a higher pay grade deal with it,_ Remy thought irritably. _We're in enough trouble as it is._

Snapping him back to reality, Lorna angrily shook her head and took the wig. "Bullshit. You don't want her touching Scalphunter because you don't want her to see, don't want her to be reminded of all your little Marauder escapades." Childishly he tossed one of the hospital ID badges he had acquired towards her. "Come on, Remy. You think I like to be reminded? Who of all of your friends and teammates understands this better than me?"

He sighed harshly and clipped his own pickpocketed ID to his smock. Remy had been essentially blackmailed into service for Sinister's villainous band of mutants known as the Marauders, but Lorna never had a choice. Her body had been hijacked by the Marauder Malice, who had gleefully used the young woman's body for unspeakably evil acts. Though they had worked for Sinister at different times, never as teammates, this association was something shameful the two members of X-Factor rarely discussed. It also, sadly, was not the only experience of being manipulated by a supervillain the two had in common, both had also been chosen and changed by the eternal mutant Apocalypse.

"Sorry, Lorna," he said evenly. "You're right. I don't want her to be reminded of that garbage. We've settled the past, the secrets and the lies, it don't need to be revisited. But I am worried about the effect his psyche could have on her. She's been pretty good this trip so far, at least since her little outburst at Serval. The last thing I want to do is set her off again." He watched her green locks disappear as she settled her wig into place. "There's more, though," he continued. "For a time, Greycrow, the real John Greycrow, was my friend. I guess. Closest thing I ever had in that crew of murderers and psychopaths. I know this isn't him, it's a clone of the real man, but I want to talk to him. I need to talk to him without worrying about Rogue. I hope you understand."

She nodded and touched his shoulder lightly. "I think I do. It's so different for me. My memories of that time are so angry and disturbed. Malice was like being covered in saran wrap. I could see and hear, but everything was detached and muffled. I never felt anything beyond a sick angry hatred towards them all." She shouldered into a white lab coat and clipped the badge to the pocket. Remy was pretty proud of the likeness of the photograph to Lorna. The resident's ID he had borrowed had a facial structure that was similar and, thanks to the wig and some dark eyebrow gel, the likeness was spot on. "We should probably get going, Remy. Shift change is coming up."

He nodded in agreement. "You sure these look all right?" he asked, blinking at Lorna.

She stepped nose to nose in the dim light. "Yeah, best I can tell. It is kind of dark in here, but they looked fine outside. Besides, you're just bringing breakfast to him. I wouldn't think the cop on duty will pay that much attention to your beautiful brown eyes. Those can't be comfortable."

Remy blinked again to settle the over-sized contacts in his eyes. "Sure ain't. Hate to field test equipment like this, but it is what it is." But, contacts almost wasn't the right word to describe the pieces of film covering his eyes. Normal contacts covered the iris, but in Remy's case his blood red irises were surrounded by black sclera. In most situations, when he was trying to hide the only visible sign of his mutation, he would throw on a pair of dark sunglasses, but that move wouldn't work in the hospital when he was pretending to be an employee. He had been looking for years for something that would cover the visible part of his eye and make it appear 'normal' while not impairing his vision or damaging his eyes like those fake Halloween vampire contacts. Months ago, the Thieves' Guild had employed an engineering wizard who had taken it upon himself to give Remy a solution to his problem. The lenses currently in his eyes were so brand new the Guild had been forced to Fed-Ex them overnight to their hotel. He had tried them on and worn them last night for a brief period of time, but this was their first real world test.

"If you say these look okay, then I guess we're ready. You think you can put a magnetic muzzle on Greycrow if he tries to blow our cover?"

She snorted and straightened the collar on her lab coat. "Give me a break." Smoothing the crisp white fabric she set her shoulders back. "You go out first, Remy. That'll give you time to snatch a breakfast tray. I'll leave in a few minutes, my route should make me first in the room. 'Dr. Dane', new resident on the block, making her rounds." They had chosen early in the morning, the sun just peeking over the horizon. Shift changes for nurses and doctors, and according to Wanda and Pietro's surveillance, for the police guarding the Marauder's room as well. Fewer eyes, fewer chances of getting caught. The routes Remy had planned from their supply closet to their destination kept them both away from nurse's stations and kept their backs to most of the video cameras, meaning they should avoid any awkward challenges.

Remy teasingly tugged at Lorna's wig. "What, don't want to be seen leaving the supply closet with little old me?"

"Sorry, McDreamy, this isn't _Grey's Anatomy_. Besides, I'm pretty sure you're the one that's gotten laid this mission, not me."

"We weren't very sneaky back in Kansas, were we?" Remy grimaced.

"It was pretty obvious from how you two were acting. The condom wrapper was in the trashcan for God's sake! I just can't believe you…" Lorna bit her lip as she searched for the right word. "…managed...'it'. I mean, full-blown…" She pumped her hips ridiculously.

"Mon dieu, I hope I don't look that stupid doing it!" he laughed and Lorna pushed one of his shoulders.

"Seriously. She was always so freaked about her powers. No one could even stand close to her, let alone touch her. I figured she'd be extra weirded out after having control of them and then losing it, but a couple of hours alone…" Lorna waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"Surprised me, too."

"Was…" She opened her mouth to continue but stopped herself.

"What? Might as well spit it out, you're already thinking it." Remy was impatient to get going and didn't want her distracted with this.

"I was yanking your chain before with Wanda, but, really, was Simon okay with what happened? You know, being in the backseat and all?"

Remy shrugged. "Rogue didn't say and I didn't ask about that. I'm sure it was a hell of a show. That girl always brings out my creative side." He winked at her.

She held up her hands defensively. "All right, okay, I don't need details. Let's get moving here."

Opening the door a crack he found the hallway vacant and quiet. He slipped softly from the supply closet and casually walked along the hall, mindful of the video camera positioning. Down a ways and around a corner he came up behind an aide pushing a cart piled with food trays. He smiled to himself. They had definitely chosen a good time to come to the hospital. So far the aide was the first person he had seen, it appeared almost no one was roaming the halls. When the aide pushed the cart to the next room and stepped inside to deliver breakfast to the patient, Remy quickly but stealthily overtook the cart she had left in the hallway. He grabbed a tray like he owned it and walked away. He quickened his pace without looking like he was rushing and rounded the next corner out of view. Visualizing the layout of the hospital he had memorized, he found the elevator he needed and headed for the room.

According to Wanda and Pietro, they had lucked out. SHIELD, the squad of suits chasing Magneto lead by one Agent Haines, was no longer guarding Greycrow. There was merely local law enforcement to contend with, only one guard on duty at the nearest nurse's station. Remy had been uneasy sending the twins to do surveillance, had really wanted to do it himself, but, as Lorna had pointed out, he couldn't very well hang out and watch the hospital for days on end and then pretend to be a member of the staff. There was no way he would have been able to avoid the security cameras for that long. He had pushed his luck hitting the employee locker room and lifting the IDs they needed. Too many appearances, even in disguise, upped his chance of being made. He had sent Wanda and Pietro incognito. Not getting his own intel made his stomach hurt, but he pushed the thought from his mind. Wanda and Pietro were professionals; both had been heroes for most of their adult lives. They could surely handle a stakeout. Truthfully, the information they had come back with was good. Shift change times, personnel numbers, meal times, all were incredibly useful for their plans. Wanda had sketched maps and noted security guards, nurse's stations, cameras, supply closets, and locker rooms. Her sketches filled in the blanks on the maps Rogue had found online. He grimaced thinking of Rogue. She would have been great at surveillance, the girl had a good eye, but Lorna was right, he selfishly wanted to keep her away from the hospital. The calmer he could keep that girl, the better off they all would be.

The elevator binged and the door swished open. Remy walked down the hall like he belonged there and made his way to Scalphunter's room. As he stepped closer he could see what was left of the man John Greycrow through the windowed walls that surrounded his hospital bed. Remy's heart jumped into his throat. He knew this man wasn't the man who had been his friend, was just a copy, but the clones of the Marauders seemed to retain the memories of the original through some manipulation by Sinister. Remy didn't know if the feelings associated with those memories were a part of the process. Scalphunter had at times been a very bad man, had done horrible things, but Remy felt a stab of pity at what Magneto had done to him. Greycrow's mutant powers included an accelerated healing factor, so under normal circumstances he recovered quickly from minor injuries and eventually from major ones. The attack had been days ago, but the four bandaged stumps that were all that remained of the man's limbs told Remy Magneto had made sure Greycrow's powers never had a chance.

Remy paused and rebalanced the breakfast tray. He stiffened. _Where is Lorna?_ He belatedly realized. He had been so distracted he hadn't noticed that she wasn't already in the room. If Greycrow wanted to be difficult he could get Remy in a lot of trouble. _Lorna. Girl probably got lost or something, dammit_. Couldn't stand in the hallway too long and wait for her, the hospital was going to start getting busy and they needed to get out soon. He took a deep breath and prepared to enter, but Greycrow stirred on the hospital bed. One of the Marauder's eyes was covered in a bandage, the remaining orb caught Remy in a steely glare. Holding Remy's surprised eyes for a few seconds, Greycrow's eye deliberately looked sideways, motioning to the left. Remy frowned. _What the…?_ He had barely formed the thought when he heard the click of a bullet siding into a chamber.

"All right, Gambit," an icy female voice broke the silence. _Fuck_, Remy thought. Greycrow smirked silently through the glass. "Set the tray down," the voice commanded. "Nothing funny, no powers." Remy slowly placed the tray on the floor in front of him and stood with his hands in the air. He turned his head and caught a glimpse of a sharp blonde woman in a dark suit before her gun pressed roughly into his temple.

"Agent Haines, I presume?" he asked, inwardly cursing at himself for being so damn sloppy and distracted. The head of SHILED's anti-Magneto squad herself. The gun bit into his skin.

"Don't even think of calling for your cohort, Magneto," she warned.

"Cohort? I think your information is…a little out of date," he spat cheekily.

"So, it wasn't his children my undercover agents made two days ago casing this mutant's room? Or another of his spawn that my team is currently dispatching? Come back to finish Daddy's work for the mutant cause?" Remy's thoughts buzzed angrily. _Goddamn sloppy Pietro, _he'd kick his ass later._ Avengers. Worthless._ "Don't think I won't use this gun," she continued. "What that monster did to officers of the law, the path of horror and violence he's carved across my country? We'll use any means necessary to stop him. This gun and the bullets in it? Non-ferrous materials. If you flinch, I promise even the man himself wouldn't be able to save you." The gun barrel twitched suddenly and violently against Remy's skull, but didn't fire. He threw himself to the ground and rolled to face Agent Haines. The woman's body was frozen in place, her eyes blazing furiously.

Lorna stepped from the shadows with one hand outstretched. "Like someone recently reminded me," she whispered low. "Non-ferrous won't stop me. It doesn't matter if the gun isn't magnetic if the finger pulling the trigger is human." She twisted her hand into a fist and Agent Haines's body shuddered. "Sorry I was late, Remy. Some SHIELD agents got a little handsy in the elevator."

Remy stood and tried to calm his jackhammering heart. Getting shot in the head once this year had been plenty, he wasn't looking for a repeat. "S'okay to be fashionably late, chere. Important thing is you still came."

"I'll loosen her grip on the gun enough for you to grab it, and then I think we should probably go." Lorna moved her fingers again and Remy pried the firearm from Agent Haines's stiff fingers. He un-cocked the gun and slipped it in his waistband at the small of his back. He gave the immobilized woman a very quick but professionally thorough pat down and removed a communication device from her jacket pocket.

"I know we don't have much time, but we need to get all the information we can get from Greycrow and from her," Remy stated flatly. "We're probably not going to get another chance."

Lorna nodded. "Okay. Make it fast, I don't know how much time we'll have before more of her people come looking for her. I scrambled the nearby cameras, but let's move this party inside the room, the hallway might get a little public." She shifted the SHIELD agent with her powers, causing the frozen woman to take awkward steps as Lorna controlled her movements like a puppeteer. Remy picked up the breakfast tray and followed the women.

He set the tray on a side table and pulled the room's large curtains. "Hello, John," he said sadly. Lorna moved Agent Haines to stand at the foot of the bed.

"Cajun," Scalphunter grunted. "Thanks a lot. My damn eggs are cold." He glared at Remy and then shifted his eye to the two women. He started in surprise. "Well, I'll be." He smiled at Lorna, causing her to shift uncomfortably. "I almost didn't recognize you without Malice smothering your soul. Working for Daddy now, sweetheart?" Lorna moved angrily forward, but Remy held up a hand in warning.

"We ain't working for Magneto, John. We're trying to find him, to stop him."

Greycrow laughed harshly. "Stop him? That's rich. Thought you were all buddy-buddy on Utopia?"

"Things change, John." Remy smiled forlornly, memories of a diner and the smell of Claire's perfume floating to the surface of his mind.

Smirking, Greycrow nodded. "Oh, I almost forgot. You're sweet on the skunk-hair, ain't you? Hard to be friends with the man bangin' your girl, huh?" Refusing to rise to the bait, Remy stared daggers into Scalphunter. "I'll tell you what I told SHIELD. He ain't coming back for me. Not_ this_ me, anyway." He turned his attention to Lorna. "Your poppa's a sick, twisted fuck, girl. Way I remember, it runs in the family." Remy reached across the bed and grabbed hold of Lorna's wrist before she struck out at the man.

"Just words, chere. They're the only weapon he has left. You gonna hurt him in the state he's in?" He saw Lorna reign in her anger and compose herself. Remy turned his attention back to Scalphunter. "What do you mean, John, 'not this me'?"

"You know as well as I do, Remy, Sinister's always got a spare." Remy swallowed thickly. The clones Sinister created seemed almost limitless in supply. No matter what Magneto had done to the Marauders, they would all resurface, shiny and new. He ran a hand through his hair and shut his eyes. The bothersome film obscuring his vision was dry and uncomfortable. "You were right, Lorna. This was a mistake. We're not gonna get anything out of him." He turned to face Lorna and Agent Haines. "Think she'll be any more forthcoming?"

Lorna nodded. "She seems like an agreeable gal. I can still hold her body but allow her limited use of her mouth and vocal cords. It'll sound funny, but I don't want her to start screaming or make trouble if I release her."

"I think she'll behave herself. We had to have made our case, proven we ain't working with the man. At least let go of her head. If she starts kicking up a fuss, shut her down permanently." Agent Haines's eyes widened. "Oh yeah, she can do that. Blood clot to the brain, you stroke out before anybody gets to you. She can do that, but she doesn't. We don't work like that. We're the good guys. All we want is information. You gonna behave?" Agent Haines's eyes seemed to acquiesce.

"Here goes," Lorna whispered.

Agent Haines sucked in a shaky breath and shut her eyes. "What…do you…want from me?" She managed to get out unsteadily.

"Like I said, just information. Old thief like me don't like getting caught. Where did we screw up?" He hoped to get her talking freely. This whole mission his biggest worry was their gaining attention from the wrong sort of people. The fewer that knew what they were up to, the closer they could get to Magneto, the easier they could talk to him on their terms without it turning into an instant shit-storm. Approaching the villain with just their small group looked less adversarial than having a network of Avenger's squads and SHIELD agents following them. If SHIELD had made Wanda and Pietro days ago, there's no telling how many mentions of them had made it onto the wires.

Agent Haines head lolled forward and she chuckled. "You people always think…you're so good at what you do, but let me tell you, we're better. My people spotted the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver…before they even stepped inside the hospital. Their disguises were good…Gambit…but a little pointer for next time: a wig can't hide you from…facial recognition software. What we lack in super powers we make up for in technology." Remy grimaced, angry at himself. He had made a big mistake, assumed that SHIELD was long gone, assumed that they didn't care about John Greycrow, assumed too fucking much and it had gotten them caught. "Don't feel badly, Gambit. You and you're team are just a little…rusty, that's all. We were gone, long gone. We had no reason to stay, all the evidence said that… Magneto had done what he came for and wasn't coming back. But something didn't…smell right to me, so I left a small squad in plainclothes…just in case."

She panted as if she were running a frozen marathon. "My agents called and reported your group two days ago. I told them to just…watch you all, find out what you were up to. I had them follow you until I could get here, observe and…contain if things escalated. From what they reported all you were doing was dancing around Greycrow here…polishing your fancy airplane out on that private airstrip. Our last intel had said Magneto was one of you now, but, to me…two Avengers and three members of Serval's X-Factor squad didn't really scream band…of mutant vigilantes. Even if most of your crew is…bloody related to that bastard, they've worked damn hard their whole careers to prove they're nothing like him." Her smile was ice as she pierced Remy with her blazing eyes. "But, Gambit, one thing I've learned in this business? Never make assumptions. A lesson to take to heart?" The woman's eyes widened in shock and she grunted awkwardly, her head slumping forward. Remy rushed forward in alarm, his fingers darting to her neck to check the pulse of the now unconscious woman.

"Relax, Remy, I just put her to sleep by slowing the flow of blood to her brain." Lorna waved him off Agent Haines and used her magnetic powers to float the woman's dangling body to the nearest chair. "It's past time for us to leave and I was getting sick of her voice." She crossed her arms and scoffed, "We're rusty? Her people are _corrupted_. My father's good, there's no denying it, but he's been miles ahead of the world's most sophisticated spy network for weeks with sputtering powers and driving a broken-down bronco. Really? He somehow manages to avoid investigating all of the fake stories they planted in the media. Really? Seems like he's had a helping hand, my guess from within their organization."

Remy nodded grimly in agreement and turned his attention to the stonily silent Scalphunter. "John…I'm so sorry…" he stepped towards the injured man but paused at the vicious expression on Greycrow's face.

"Get out of here you fucking hypocrite," Greycrow hissed venomously. "You think your lip service to Xavier's dream is going to save you from him? You're the one who's fucking dreaming." Lorna tugged insistently on Remy's arm, turning him away. "He's coming for you, too, Gambit," Greycrow spit Remy's codename. "What he did to me? Ain't nothing compared to what he'll do to you! I'm not the one that fucked his little girlfriend!" The Marauder's hysterical laughter followed them out the door and into the elevator.


	10. Chapter 10

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's note: Sorry no Rogue last chapter, but everybody's favorite Southern belle is back this round. Nearing the end of the story, and things get pretty exciting from here to the finish line. Thanks again for reading and I really love all the reviews!

**Chapter ten**

"Fuck!" Remy slammed his hands into the closed elevator doors. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" His arms spread, he left his hands on the doors and hung his head down in between them.

Lorna pulled out her phone. "Rogue? Yeah, we're done…" Remy took a deep shuddering breath in an attempt to calm himself. He rarely allowed himself to feel angry but his hands were shaking with rage. His miscalculation had put them all in serious jeopardy. "Prep the jet," Lorna continued. "We'll be there soon….we need to be airborne ASAP…Okay, see you shortly." She hung up and placed a hand tentatively on Remy's back. He sighed shakily. "It's okay, Remy," she whispered and reached her other hand beside him to press the button for the lobby.

He laughed bitterly. "Hardly. They made us like we're fucking amateurs and then whoever's feeding your daddy information is gonna lead him right to us." He shrugged her hand off as he straightened to his full height. "Two days ago! He's probably waiting for us right now!"

"Maybe it's time he knows we're coming?" Lorna said softly and leaned her back against the glossy elevator wall. "The whole point of this mission was to find him and convince him to end this…crusade he's on. Maybe if he knows we want to talk to him…"

Shaking his head in disgust he turned to her. "You're out of your mind, you and your sister, if you think he's gonna listen to reason. This ain't gonna end well."

"Then _what_?" The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Remy strode briskly along the edge of the lobby towards a nearly deserted side entrance with Lorna hot on his heels and hissing in his ears. "Exactly how did _you_ see this ending? I don't know about you, but I kind of doubt we could take him in a fair fight if that was your stupid plan. If you think Wanda and I and Rogue are all crazy for wanting to talk to the man," Remy glared at her over his shoulder as they stepped into the parking lot and the early morning light. "Yeah, you heard me, your precious Rogue agrees with us. I know you two are all hot and heavy and in love again, but she cares for my father and has always tried to see the good in him. She thinks she can get through to him. Deny it all you want, but we have a good chance of making this work."

They reached their rental car. Remy unlocked it and angrily stuffed himself into the driver's seat as Lorna climbed in and buckled up. "You're ignoring my question again, Remy," Lorna said icily as they pulled out of the parking lot. "How did you plan on ending this? Or…" she turned partway in the seat to glower at him. "…did the master thief not have an exit strategy? You saw your little Roguey running off after the competition and you jumped without a parachute?" She grinned in satisfaction at the withering stare she received from Remy. "Uh huh," she said smugly and sat back in the passenger seat.

They drove in silence the rest of the way, Lorna playing with her wig and Remy fuming. He hated to admit it, but she was right. Again. How _had_ he expected to finish this mission? He had been so shocked by Rogue's appearance at Serval and the state she had been in that he had come to the rescue like he always did, t'hell with the consequences. He had helped plan their strategy so far for this half-baked mission, following Magneto's breadcrumbs, but what he didn't want to admit to Lorna or any of them was that his ultimate goal had really been to _avoid_ a confrontation altogether. He had hoped by coming along he could drag out their investigation, have them chasing shadows until either SHIELD or the Avengers had caught up to the villain ahead of them. The last thing he wanted was to have things come to a head with the love of his life caught in the cross-hairs.

The private airstrip where they had stashed Snow's fancy Cessna came into view. It was deserted today, they had paid for anonymity on this trip, not wanting to deal with major or minor airports. The sun glinted off the pathetic sheet metal buildings along the single runway and Remy pulled their car up to the nearest and parked. Lorna opened her door and stepped from the vehicle. Remy stayed in his seat and sent a quick text message to Rent-A-Car letting them know where to pick up their vehicle later. He rummaged in the car's console for the case his contacts had come in and pulled down the vanity mirror. He breathed in relief as he peeled the film from each eye and stuck them in their liquid filled container. Lorna stretched and removed her wig and cap, shaking her tangled green hair free. Wanda waved, and she and Pietro stepped down the stairs of the jet. Lorna waved back and walked towards the twins. Remy unfolded his long legs and stepped from the vehicle, and Rogue emerged from the doorway of the building, smiling knowingly at him.

"Trouble, sugar?" She asked and he snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her into an embrace.

"You could say that." He rested his chin on her shoulder and breathed deeply the smell of her shampoo. Her presence acted as a balm for his raw anger and he held her tight for a few minutes while he watched Lorna chatting with her siblings. "We need to get out of here. Pietro missed a whole squad of SHIELD agents watching the hospital."

Rogue pulled back, her mouth a small 'o' and her eyebrows raised high in surprise. "Wondered why Lorna called me instead of you." She placed a gloved hand on his cheek. He closed his eyes and leaned into it gratefully. "Don't keep yourself too riled up, sugar. It's not your fault." He grabbed her hand and kissed the palm. She smiled and they started walking towards the Lehnsherr children arm in arm, Rogue's head resting on his shoulder. "How'd the contacts work out?" she asked.

He shrugged. "All right, I think. My eyes are real goddamned dry, though. Only had them in a few hours. Hate to think what they would have felt like after a day."

"Or days…" she added.

"Yeah. I hear that. Some feedback for the guild's engineering friend, I guess."

Pietro, impatient as ever, crossed his arms and sneered at Gambit. "Why are you two still in hospital scrubs?" His lips twisted into a smirk.

Gambit untangled himself from Rogue, his anger rising again. "Had to leave in a hurry, _Quicksilver_." He stood nose to nose with Pietro. "I share the blame in this, believe me, but you two were sloppy. SHIELD made your asses two days ago." Rogue laid a hand in warning on his forearm.

Pietro started in surprise. "Impossible," he scoffed.

"Heard it from Agent Haines herself. You two missed a whole squad in and around the hospital, we all missed them casing our every move. Then they fed our names into their leaky little database." Remy was seeing red again and shrugged Rogue's hand from his arm, but her super-strength gripped him almost painfully tight, letting him know she'd yank his ass back if he stepped too far over the line. With his free hand he jabbed a finger into Pietro's chest emphasizing each of his next words. "Your. Pops. Knows. Mission. Over."

"Don't touch me, LeBeau," Pietro said darkly.

Wanda tried to force her way between them. "Stop it. You two have been at each other's throats this entire operation. It is tiresome." The petite Witch pushed each of their shoulders, harder than Remy would have expected, separating them. "If our father is alerted to our activities, it does not mean we turn tail and give up. The confrontation would come eventually…"

"OH…!?" Lorna gasped in surprise and pain and doubled over. She nearly dropped to her knees but Wanda awkwardly caught her sister around the waist.

"Lorna!" Wanda cried frantically, the others rushing to the sisters' sides. "What is it? Pietro, help me with her!" Pietro knelt on Lorna's other side and helped Wanda lower Lorna to the runway.

"NO!" Lorna cried, a spasm of pain rippling through her body. She groaned in agony. "It's…can't you feel..?" she choked out through clenched teeth. "….too late…!" she hissed, spitting. A wave of pure energy slammed into them, Remy's body buzzing with the familiar feel of magnetic force, his face scraping the concrete runway on the way down.

Magneto's voice echoed shatter-shot from overhead, amplified by the empty steel buildings. "I am not fool enough to think you are all here to join in my cause." He floated above them, bald head shining in his civilian costume of blue jeans and a battered army jacket. "I just did not think you were all fool enough to directly challenge me."

From his stomach, Remy managed to push himself up onto his arms but that was as far as he could get, Magneto's power pressing into them. He caught a glimpse of Lorna. The mutant, her powers nearly identical to their adversary, was on her back, her face contorted in pain and rage. He saw her bear down and a pulse of magnetic energy moved out from her to wash over them. As it passed, he found he could move again. He rolled over and sprang up to a fighting stance, but Rogue pulled him back down onto his knees.

"Hold on, sugar," she whispered in his ear. "Let's see how this plays out. He didn't come to talk to you." She nodded towards Magneto's children who were staggering to their feet.

Wanda made it up first and walked slowly towards where her father floated above them. "We're not here to challenge you. None of us want that. We are here to ask you to stop what you are doing. This cannot continue! Your actions have far reaching repercussions that are bringing you and the issue of mutant powers to the attention of the wrong people. You place too many at risk, most of all yourself! Stop your mad crusade, come with us, and turn yourself in to the authorities. We will do all in our power to see that you are treated fairly!" She held out her hands pleadingly, but Lorna and Pietro held back.

Magneto floated lower until he hovered inches from the ground. "Turn myself in? To be tried again in a human court?" He crossed his arms insolently. "Mutants are above mere human laws. I am the justice that is delivered to those who abuse our kind."

Rogue, ignoring her own advice, stood up behind Remy. "One man can't be judge, jury and executioner. Your vigilantism is doing nothing but adding fuel to the fire of human hatred. Don't separate yourself from your humanity, from those who care about you…"

A small smile touched Magneto's lips, almost one of affection. "My dear, sweet Anna. As always, passion colors your words…" His eyes lowered and blackened when he caught sight of Remy apparently for the first time. "But perhaps the passion you feel is no longer for me?"

"Father!" Wanda drew his attention back to her. "Rogue is correct! This has gone much too far. No one wants to see this escalate further! You must listen to reason, I beg you!"

"Beg?" Magneto sneered. "Isn't that usually done from one's knees?" He extended a hand and Wanda cried out and dropped to the ground, completely in his control.

"No!" Pietro flung himself at his father, cracking him with a flying fist. Remy pulled Rogue back as Magneto landed on his hands and knees and with his powers sent Pietro crashing and unconscious in their direction.

"Enough!" Lorna caught Pietro with her powers before he slammed into the Cessna. She rose into the air, her green hair crackling around her. "None of us wanted it to go down like this. We hoped you'd be reasonable and see that we're trying to protect you." She rose higher and Remy felt her push her energy against Magneto's. "But," Lorna growled, "You're coming in, one way or the other!"

Magneto struggled to his feet and pushed back against his daughter's powers. "Protect me?" He mocked and rose into the air, stretching a hand wide. Lorna screamed and grabbed her head in pain as Magneto's influence tangled and overwhelmed her. He ruthlessly redirected their shared energy, draining and immobilizing her. "Protection is something I have never needed, my child."

Rogue sprang into the air between Magneto and the writhing Polaris. "Listen to what your girls are saying here, Erik! SHIELD is hunting you, who do you think is coming for you next? Can't fight the whole world, though I know you're too goddamned stubborn not to try." She floated closer and held out her hands pleadingly. Remy, despite the danger of the situation, had to look away as it seemed her words and honeyed voice were getting through to the villain. "You can be so much more, Erik, I've seen it, seen you become that beacon for those who have lost all hope. Charles believed in you, always believed in the good in you! What would he think of what you are doing here? Would he be proud of you? Could you look him in the eye after what you've done?" Her voice had gone low and throaty with emotion and Remy couldn't help the staggering of his heart at the sound. She had moved closer to Magneto, her hand resting on the man's chest. "Erik," she whispered, "can you look _me_ in the eye?" Her eyes pleaded and Magneto reached for her suddenly and laid a hand on her cheek. Rogue jerked back, too late to stop the slight pull of her power.

Magneto faltered slightly from the contact. Not enough to drop him or cause any real harm, but rage and betrayal seared across his features. "No, Erik," Rogue reached for him again but he recoiled in disgust. "I didn't mean to, I can't…" A piece of the small hangar ripped from the building faster than Remy's eyes could follow and wrapped tightly around Rogue, pinning her arms. The strain of holding Polaris and the Scarlet Witch showed on his face, but with Lorna's added energy Magneto tightened the steel's grip on Rogue.

"Anna…Flying into the air like the bold and brassy Rogue of old. Strong enough to push the limits of my magnetically strengthened binding. Tell me, dear, whose powers did you manage to seduce away this time?" Remy charged a brace of cards and flung them towards the villain, but they were easily deflected. Magneto's eyes blazed furiously with power. "Stay out of this, LeBeau. Count yourself fortunate I no longer find you culpable in the Marauders more punishable offenses." Shifting his attention back towards Rogue, Remy saw the villain concentrate and a wave of his power coursed down Rogue's body. "I see him, I feel his power…ions…" he whispered. "This is finished. _We_ are finished." The Master of Magnetism flung Rogue away, hard. She landed on her butt and skidded down the runway, the steel crushing her body sending sparks shooting out around her. Remy raced after her, leaving the siblings to their father's tender mercies. He knelt beside her as she struggled against her binding and charged a line down the steel. Lorna's tortured screams began again and they both stared in wide eyed shock back down the runway. Lorna floated in the fetal position, energy radiating from her body and channeling into her father.

"Ahh, hell! He reinforced this shit!" Rogue grunted and pushed on her steel bond. "One more time, sugar," she ordered Remy, who zipped his power down the other side of the steel. Straining with all of Wonderman's might, Rogue cracked the steel to pieces.

"What's he doing to her?" Remy asked, pulling Rogue up from the ground. She grabbed him under the arms and rose into the air. Lorna glowed so brightly Remy could hardly look at her directly and the girl continued to shriek heart-wrenching sobs laced with torment.

"Don't know. Can't be good." She streaked towards them, too late. The magnetic duo exploded and a shockwave drowned out their world.


	11. Chapter 11

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's note: Thank you everybody for the reviews! As always, you guys keep me going...nice to know there's still an audience for Romy. Action packed chapter here, mature audiences for the swears and violence, and I'll be wrapping up the story pretty quickly. Thanks again for reading!

**Chapter eleven**

"Remy!"

_Hurts. Dark._

"Remy!"

_Loud. Dizzy._

"Remy LeBeau! God dammit, answer me!"

Remy gingerly shook his head, his consciousness floating to the surface and spinning desperately. His body was twisted unnaturally, his mouth filled with the hot rusty taste of blood. He tentatively twitched his arms, legs, everything hurt like hell. He couldn't move very far in any direction, but all his fingers and toes still wiggled. He seemed to be piled under thick, sizzling pieces of metal. Near total darkness enveloped him, but he was beginning to see cracks of blazing white light. He breathed slowly, tasting acrid smoke as pain wrapped around his chest. _Cracked ribs? No stabbing pain, no punctured lung…_ He ran his tongue through his mouth, counting his teeth, and tried to spit out the blood.

"We're coming, Gambit!" Lorna. _She's all right?_ Dimly he was aware Rogue had been calling his name as well. He felt his metallic tomb shift and strain while Polaris and Rogue shuffled frantically through the wreckage.

"Marco!" Remy yelled as loudly as his raw throat would allow.

"Polo!" Rogue answered, up and to his right.

"Marco!" he managed, louder. His insides did backflips when his powerful rescuers ripped apart the charred remains of their borrowed Cessna. One slip and the torn remnants could shift and crush him. Something warm ran down his leg and he didn't know whether to hope it was blood or that he had pissed himself.

"Polo!" Lorna yelled triumphantly, light pouring in above him. "Jackpot!" Remy groaned and tried to twist his face away from the dazzling brightness. His arms and legs were still pinned, but he wriggled desperately now that he had an escape hatch.

"Oh, thank God!" He heard Rogue's panicked voice rush towards him. "We gotta get him out! This is goin' to hell in a hand basket real fast!" Steel groaned and cracked and Rogue began heaving chunks of the destroyed plane away from them. "Remy, can you move? Are you all right?"

"Never better, chere," he hissed. "Get me the hell out of here!"

"Almost there, Gambit," Polaris grunted and he felt his surroundings relax as she pulled more metal away from him.

He could move a little more, his arms were free but his legs were still caught under a chunk of the wing. "Fuck!" It was blood, not piss.

"He's hurt, Rogue!" Polaris floated over him, unsteady, her neon hair fanning around her head like she was floating underwater. "Get ahold of the wing there, I'll give you a boost and wrap him in a little magnetic bubble to keep any shrapnel from hitting him."

Rogue knelt for just a second next to him and passed her gloved fingers lightly over his closed lips, wiping the trail of blood from the corner of his mouth. She looked fine of course, thanks to Simon's powers, though her clothing was absolutely shredded. She moved to his legs and gripped the massive hunk of metal. "Remy, you're bleeding pretty good, but I don't think it's enough for arterial blood. There's a chance the wreckage is putting pressure on the wound and halting a major bleed, but it's a risk we have to take. You can't stay where you are. We found a first aid kit and Lorna'll put a magnetic tourniquet on it if she has to. I can't tell the damage until we get you clear, but it's gonna hurt like hell. On three?" She steadied herself and Polaris nodded. Rogue leveled her eyes at Gambit. He held her gaze and nodded his ascent. He held his breath and braced himself.

"One…two…three!" Rogue heaved and Gambit felt a tearing pain in his leg.

"Gah!" He yelled in spite of himself and doubled over, sitting up. Free of the wreckage, his hands tentatively prodded his leg while Polaris continued to clear debris.

Rogue knelt back at his side. "Here, stop that. Let me see." Remy sucked air through gritted teeth when she gently pulled his hands from his thigh. "It looks worse than it is, sugar. We got lucky."

Rolling his eyes at her, Remy flopped back onto the ground. "Lucky's my middle name, chere." He looked sideways at Lorna. "Is she okay? It sounded like he really tore into her."

She nodded grimly. "I think so. She's pretty shaky. I didn't think she'd even be conscious after that, but she fought him, took back control. Don't know how the hell she's still standing. Stubborn, I guess." Smiling, she dug into the battered first aid kit. "I better clean this and get you patched up. You need stitches, but we can't help that now. Just gonna wrap it tight. If you would try to…heh…" She laughed a weird laugh, bit her lip, and kept at her task.

Remy lifted his head slightly. "Try to what?" he asked warily.

"I was gonna say 'try to take it easy' but that's pretty damn stupid right now, isn't it?" She shook her head and a lock of white hair slipped from her disheveled ponytail and fell into her eyes. Remy reached out to tuck it behind her ear, but she flinched back from his ripped gloves.

"Anna, don't be ridiculous," he whispered and carefully tucked her hair back with one of the fingers that was still completely covered.

"Thanks," she said quickly and continued to work. "This will sting," she said and uncapped a small bottle of rubbing alcohol.

The antiseptic made him jump and brought tears to his eyes. "You want me to blow on it?" Rogue chided, only to be met with a wolfish grin. "Oh, please, sugar. Now is not the time." Her cheeks flushed and he smiled.

"Where is he?" Remy asked slowly. "What happened?"

"Best I can tell, we're a ways away from him. He slapped us down like a horse swatting a fly and then just…left. I think SHIELD's assessment of his powers wasn't real accurate. Didn't seem the least depowered to me. You saw it. Polaris did her best to hold him off, but it was almost like he was feeding off of her, using her powers to boost his own. He combined their energy and blasted us, tore the plane apart. I'd like to think the explosion was an accident, but the damn EM pulse probably took out electronics, civilian communications for hundreds of miles. Polaris still had enough of her own power and managed to shield herself, Wanda, and Pietro from the wreckage, but you and I were too far away. He hit us, hit the plane, and he…he just kept going. Like he didn't care if we lived or died, like we weren't worth the trouble." She shook her head angrily. "His own damn children. God, Remy, I couldn't keep ahold of you, couldn't find you…I…" She swallowed hard and her hands started shaking.

"Hey. You found me. It'll be okay." He laid a hand on her shoulder, careful of the holes in her clothing. He spotted Polaris sifting through the wreckage. "What's she doing?"

"Looking for any pieces of equipment or supplies intact. Be nice to find our communications salvageable or water or blankets."

Wincing as Rogue wrapped the large wound tightly with gauze, Remy continued circling the area with his eyes. The Cessna was useless metal garbage strewn in smoking heaps on the thankfully abandoned runway. He frowned and pursed his lips. "Where are the twins?"

Rogue angrily tore medical tape from the roll. "Soon as they were clear, they took off after him. Assholes! Couldn't wait t'go as a team, couldn't let us find you and make sure you were okay for Christ's sake! Pietro just took off with Wanda in his arms. Fuck!" She threw the empty plastic tape roll, her super-strength driving it straight through a chunk of the hull.

"Bah…" Remy gestured nonchalantly. "Those Lehnsherrs. Tried to tell you. No class." Polaris landed beside the couple, her hands on her hips. "Present company excluded, cherie." He winked at Polaris who just rolled her eyes.

"Thanks, Gambit. Always got my back." She screwed up her face and turned to Rogue. "Equipment's shot, not that we didn't guess that. Snow is going to be so pissed. Do we go after them or go for help?"

Rogue stood and crossed her arms rebelliously over her heaving chest. "We go for help. Remy's hurt. I'm not gonna risk his life for this crap. Shouldn't have in the first place."

"He already risked his life by insisting on coming with us on this mission. And Wanda and Pietro need our help…"

"Wanda and Pietro can take care of themselves. We need backup and the last thing we need is to let him get his hands on your powers again. And Remy volunteered when he was fully functional. You can't fight Magneto with anything less." _Damn, she's beautiful when she's angry_.

"We're not supposed to be fighting Magneto. This was strictly a peace mission." Polaris spread her hands emphatically.

Rogue snorted. "Please. So peaceful he ripped our craft apart and left us for dead, used you as a goddamned booster. Pietro was right. Never should have come on this harebrained mission." She shook her head. "I still can't believe he'd…"

A high pitched whine resonated across the wreckage of a barely intact nearby hangar. "What the hell is that?" Remy interrupted.

"Where is it coming from?" Polaris twisted wildly. "I feel…" The noise grew steadily louder and something large slammed into Lorna's body from behind them, too fast for Rogue to jump to her defense.

"No time to call 911, petite! The fight's coming back to us!" Remy pointed to where Polaris's now unconscious body lay under the limp form of her brother Quicksilver.

"Jesus!" Rogue crouched to help Remy up and they hobbled towards the duo. "He's using his son as a projectile? Is Pietro even alive?"

"Still breathing, chere. Just unconscious. Again. Wonder if he was aiming at Lorna or just bad luck? Seems kind of stupid if he can use her power to bolster his…" _Maybe he isn't close enough to see us yet? We got a couple of minutes, then._ Remy looked around frantically, his fuzzy brain scrambling for a plan. "Can you fly us up and away from this debris? Don't want to leave them behind, but don't want to give bucket-head thousands of metal weapons neither. Maybe we move the party on a little bit? Get him to chase us?"

"Chase me, you mean." She shrugged Gambit's arm off her shoulder despite his angry protests and took off skyward. "Stay here and stay hidden. Go for help when we're out of sight."

He drew breath to scream her name, but choked in silent horror when a surprised cry ripped from Rogue's throat. Barely fifty feet in the air had she stopped, frozen, caught in mid-flight, she struggled against invisible bonds. Magneto's form floated maliciously back into view, his shadow blotting out the sun. Gambit ducked behind a section of the aircraft and managed to remain hidden from his view. Another mistake to cap off the day, Remy realized, too late. _The cornered animal always fights the hardest_. No matter how few of them had come after him, no matter that they were people who cared for him, that loved him, Magneto was still being hunted, tracked like a dog, and that was something he would never stand for. As if to emphasize his thought, the lifeless form of the Scarlet Witch trailed behind the Master of Magnetism, her long hair dangling beneath her floating form.

Magneto's voice boomed over the abandoned runway. "How disappointing. My children preach of togetherness and understanding, of the greater good, and yet they come willing to slip a knife between the shoulder blades of my turned back. And you, dear sweet Anna," Remy stopped breathing as Magneto raised a hand in the air, dangling Rogue's body like a Christmas ornament on a tree. "I admit my heart swelled with hope at the sight of you. Even though my children rarely see anything but the monster they have cast me as, you have always tried to see the nobility in my actions, to see the good in me." His outstretched hand twisted into an angry fist causing the young woman to shriek in pain.

A desperate Remy scrambled on the ground for a weapon, for anything to use against him, anything to make him stop. _Betrayal. Always big with this one._ If you weren't with Magneto, you were against him, blind loyalty the only emotion the villain valued. Charging a handful of debris, Gambit let it rip in a hail of kinetic energy towards his foe. "Good? Ain't nothing good about that Mr. Clean look you be sportin' m'sieu!" he bantered, knowing he was no match for the mutant but hoping to take the focus off Rogue if only for a moment.

"You are an annoyance, LeBeau," Magneto warned. In an instant he used his powers to mold a shield for himself out of the surrounding fragments. Remy swore under his breath as his barrage detonated against its surface, most of the charge exploding back in his direction. He was forced to dive for cover, dragging his pain and blood soaked leg behind him. He scrambled for a better position while the villain turned his attention back to Rogue.

"And what of you, my former love? I bare my heart and soul to you, but instead of you coming to my side, what do I find? Unfaithfulness? Duplicity? It all seems so beneath you…" While Magneto ranted, Remy drug himself on his elbows across ripped metal, trying to ignore Rogue's increasingly agonizing screams. He had to get this asshole down. He was never a match power to power, but if he could get him on the ground…Remy looked towards Rogue. Wonderman's strange bubbly power signature flared all around her and her limbs twisted in the air at irregular angles. Magneto continued to roar in fury, his power crackling around him. "I control all forms of energy… not merely magnetic, but ionic. Did you think I would not notice your stowaway? That you could hide Simon from me, ambush me with his powers? I am sure you and my clever children laughed as you hatched your devious plan. Catch me unaware, use your feminine wiles to get close to me….I expected so much more from you than this pathetic…_ruse_. I rebuilt you, my darling girl. I know every cell, Anna, every last inch of your body. You can hide nothing from me!" Magneto tilted his head, and the look on his face sent ice water down Remy's back. "What say you, darling girl? Shall we ask your friend to come out and play?"

The villain stretched his arms wide. Like pulling a loose thread from a sweater, Magneto took hold of a string of the ionic power coursing from within Rogue and pulled. Rogue shook violently and Remy sickeningly could no longer tell if her screams of pain had stopped or were being drowned out by his own or the hum of Magneto's power surrounding them. The ionic energy that comprised Simon boiled to the surface of her skin, tearing apart what was left of her clothing. The energy ripped through every pore of her body, exploding outward in a misty cloud of crimson. Her muscles slackened like a puppet with its strings cut and she dangled lifeless in Magneto's grip. Remy's tortured cries stirred the Scarlet Witch to consciousness, her head lolling awkwardly towards the horrific scene. Simon's form, no longer human but composed of pure ionic energy, briefly coalesced in the blood-red cloud. With a desperate gaze, the hero Wonderman held a hand towards Wanda before, with a look of determination, Magneto shifted his hands and blasted Simon apart.

The Scarlet Witch's hex bolt caught her father squarely between the shoulders, briefly disrupting his powers. Remy forced himself to ignore Rogue, ignore the crushing pain in his leg, to move towards them, cursing himself for not acting faster. The trio of floating mutants fell to the ground and Remy jumped towards Magneto as they landed, lashing out with a teeth-rattling kick to the other man's jaw. In an instant he was on Magneto, punching, clawing, kicking, tearing into the man with a manic fury, trying not to see Rogue's damaged form lying on the ground behind him.

Magneto rolled and threw Gambit, holding his now broken jaw, and scrambled to his feet, attempting to use his powers. Most mutants required some degree of concentration to deploy their talents, but Remy refused to let Magneto regain his bearings, tackling him and driving an elbow into his temple and snapping a punch to his solar plexus. Gambit swept Magneto's legs out from under him and got a hold of his throat, bearing down he shoved his knee into the other man's stomach. Magneto twisted his thumb into the wound on Gambit's leg and Remy screamed but squeezed harder and slammed Magneto's head against the ground again and again.

"Lorna!" He heard Wanda's cry and sensed the double whammy of a hex-bolt and a magnetic blast coming his way. Thankfully not the focus of the combined powers, he felt Magneto shudder beneath him as the man dropped into unconsciousness.

Gambit hauled himself off of Magneto and drug his leg to Rogue. Wanda painfully scooted towards her father's body; Lorna, with Pietro's arm slung over her shoulder, limped towards them. Lorna's eyes widened in shock. "Remy, is she…?" Gambit shrugged off his trench coat and draped it over the essentially naked Rogue. "What did he do to her?" She whispered, horrified.

He collapsed next to Rogue, nearly bursting into tears of relief as he heard his love draw a shaky, slow breath. He leaned over her and heard her thready heartbeat through the jacket's fabric. "He pulled Simon right out of her," he said roughly. The sight would never leave him and vomit burned the back of his throat as a memory of another friend, his metal bones liquid on a broken asteroid, floated to his mind. He ran trembling hands carefully over her face and hair.

"Oh, my God! Simon! Wanda…where is he!" Pietro looked frantically around, his eyes falling to his sister Wanda who was silently sobbing into her hands.

"He…he..."She moaned uncontrollably and Pietro, ever the over-protective brother, ran to her.

Holding the side of her head, Lorna collapsed beside Remy and Rogue. Lightly laying a hand on Rogue's side, she smiled weakly at Remy when she felt her friend breathe. "I can feel Simon…feel his ionic energy around us…in the landscape..?" Lorna looked slightly confused and Remy wondered briefly if she was concussed. "Wanda, I don't know for sure what that means, but I think he's still here," she shrugged sadly. "I can't tell anything more than that…"

Remy gestured at the still form of Magneto. "You and Wanda did this?"

"Yeah. While you were beating him senseless. Nice distraction, by the way. We combined our powers. Her probability power allowed me to override his natural defenses and slow the blood flow to his brain. Knocked him out pretty quick." She ran a shaking hand through her tangled hair. "Keeping him under will take some effort, but I can handle it. Anything's better than letting him manipulate me again." She shuddered.

"Should have gave him a damn stroke," Remy spat bitterly. "Finished this whole damn mess."

Lorna winced and looked angrily at Remy through tear-filled eyes. "I know you're pissed, but think about what you just said to me. I should have murdered my father? How could that be okay with me?"

He grunted and looked away from Lorna. He lifted Rogue's head gently so it was resting in his lap, carefully avoiding his throbbing wound. Lorna could be hurt and pissy all she wanted to. Rogue was breathing and Simon was out of her head. He wished it could have been a painless process and he hoped to God Simon was salvageable, and that anybody but Magneto could have figured out how to separate the two of them, but fuck it, it was done. Provided there was no permanent damage, one problem solved. He held a hand hesitantly over her forehead. _Maybe it solved two problems?_ Had Simon been the cause of her malfunctioning powers? In the old days her powers had worked with her unconscious or no, so he could test them here and now. _In for a penny…_he ran his bare finger lightly down the side of her cheek.

"Jesus, Remy!" Lorna screeched and grabbed for him, but Remy caught her wrist with his free hand. "Oh. Jesus, Remy!" She stared at him as Gambit released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Rogue's powers seemed to be back under her control. He sighed in relief. Her skin was an angry red, looking much like a nasty sunburn and she was covered with a light sheen of sweat, but a quick check proved she was otherwise uninjured despite her trauma and the tumble to the ground, at least on the outside. The knot in his stomach would only go away when he had her examined and she was awake and smiling again.

"What do we do now, boss?" Remy raised an eyebrow at Lorna. "We're wrecked. Our ride's wrecked. You've got him right now, but you look dead as I feel. We need to get him somewhere that can hold him, but our communications are trashed and thanks to your little daddy-daughter tussle there's probably no cell phone service for hundreds of miles. We all need medical attention and it's gonna get real cold soon as the sun sets."

"Actually, help should be here very soon." Pietro looked guiltily towards Wanda.

"Oh? How's that? You a telepath now or something?" Remy glared at the uncomfortable looking speedster.

"When I was preparing the plane for take-off, I sent a call for help." The Scarlet Witch pulled away from her brother's protective embrace and stared wide-eyed at him. "I know, Wanda, you wanted to do this without assistance, but from Rogue's interpretation of Lorna's phone call, something had gone wrong. I hazarded a guess that he had spotted us, and communicated my feelings to the Avengers. This was a fool's folly from the beginning, I will not risk our lives any more than necessary. I relayed our position and they sent out immediate assistance. They should be arriving soon. Believe it or not, it has only been an hour since he ambushed us."

"Oh. So you didn't just take off after your father and leave me for dead?" Remy glowered at his teammate who ducked his head sheepishly. _All this goddamned pain and danger and our bailout in the form of a supersonic jet full of heroes would be here within minutes_? _The day delivers another kick to the balls._ "Didn't know you cared, mon ami."

"Don't tell anyone. I have a reputation to uphold."

"How can you make jokes!?" Wanda screamed and flailed wildly at Pietro. "Simon is dead!"

Pietro caught her hands and stilled them against his chest. "We don't know that. His ionic form has dissipated before and he has recovered with your help. You heard Lorna, she can still feel him. There is hope, my sister. When the cavalry arrives there will be a surplus of equipment and bodies filled with enormous intellects. Surely they will figure out what the hell our father did to him."

The dueling sonic booms of two approaching jets did wonders for Remy's ragged nerves. He and Lorna shielded Rogue from the dust and debris kicked up by the landing of the Avengers' transports. A swarm of heroes and equipment puked from the interior of the jets, people that Remy knew by reputation more than actual conversation. Most surrounded Wanda and the captive Magneto, but Remy felt himself relax inwardly when Logan, the Wolverine, stalked their way. His stocky friend and sometime teammate wore his trademark scowl on his face, along with a fancy new costume. Despite the situation, Remy had to bite back a laugh when Logan knelt next to Rogue and clucked over her like a mother hen. The man's eyes narrowed at Remy.

"She smells different, different than she has lately. She just smells like her." Remy sighed, exhausted, and relayed what had transpired to an increasingly tense Logan. After what seemed like hours, the first jet was ready for a return trip to the East Coast. Logan gingerly picked up Rogue while a shaky Lorna helped Remy onto a gurney driven by two Avengers he didn't recognize. Remy reached out and touched Logan's arm on the way into the aircraft.

"When she's awake," he smiled crookedly at the raised eyebrow Logan gave him, "maybe she can borrow some of your healing power?" The man grimaced and resumed walking.

"Yeah, about that…" Logan called over his shoulder. "few things you need to catch up on, Gumbo..."


	12. Chapter 12

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's note: Last chapter! This is the conclusion of our story, but I am leaving the door open for a sequel at some point if I feel like revisiting. For now, I'm content to let Rogue and Remy ride off into the sunset together. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing, hope you enjoyed my story!

**Chapter twelve**

**Epilogue**

He was awake before his cell phone alarm went off, not that he had slept that much anyway. He flipped the heavy down comforter off, and, wincing, slung his legs one at a time over the edge of the bed. His wound was healing, but still hurt like hell and left him stiff and limping. Scrubbing his hands down his face, he took a look at his surroundings, the pre-dawn light barely filtering through the room's gauzy curtains. He smiled. The décor wasn't the stuffed animals and frilly lace of the bedrooms she had kept at Xavier's back in the day, which he took as a good sign in the taste department, but there was an antiseptic quality to the room that bothered him. If he hadn't known this was Anna's room, if he couldn't smell her scent in the bed's blankets and pillows, it could have been anyone's. It was like she hadn't settled in, like this place wasn't home to her.

_Maybe that's not such a bad thing_, he thought and stood, gingerly stretching his injured leg. He brushed his teeth quickly and splashed water on his face in the quarter's bathroom. He gently pulled on his jeans, _relaxed fit thank you very much_, and slipped on a broken in grey t-shirt. His boots he found hidden under the edge of the bed where he had apparently kicked them when he had finally, grudgingly, gone to bed last night. If he could have gotten away with it, he would have continued to camp out in the infirmary, but Logan had shoved him forcibly out of Rogue's hospital room, and the look in the Wolverine's eyes had said nothing short of a fist fight would have changed his mind on the subject.

Remy made his way sluggishly through the quiet halls of the Avengers' mansion, his leg throbbing with every step. It was definitely early, but he surely couldn't be the only one up. He had intended to walk directly to Anna's room and relieve Logan from his turn at her bedside, but the smell of coffee lured him to the kitchen.

Wanda, her pretty face scrubbed clean and her curly chestnut hair twisted into a bun on the top of her head, sat at the kitchen's island, her slender fingers wrapped around a steaming mug. She started in surprise at Remy's presence.

"Oh! Good morning, Remy." She smiled, but the expression didn't reach her tired eyes.

"Bonjour." Remy lurched further into the massive kitchen. What the facility lacked in coziness, it made up for in state of the art. Anything a chef like Remy could imagine in terms of equipment or ingredients sat organized in and around gleaming marble counters and stainless steel shelves. Any other time and he would have been itching to whip up a feast, but right now his heart just wasn't in it.

"If you are hungry, Jarvis will be serving breakfast in the dining hall shortly," she offered helpfully, but Remy shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to have to make small talk with the Wasp over a plate of bacon and eggs. He hit the cupboard containing mugs on the first try and poured himself a steaming cup of salvation. He leaned heavily on the counter across from Wanda, and the two regarded each other in an awkward silence. After everything they had just been through, Remy wasn't sure where they stood. They had worked well together as part of a team, but Rogue had survived the experience, and, from all appearances, Simon had not. The Avengers' best and brightest were working around the clock to prove otherwise, but Wanda's haunted, dejected look told Remy all he needed to know on their progress. He wanted to offer her comfort, but it wasn't his place, and though he knew Wanda didn't blame him, knew in his heart and soul that someone else had pulled the proverbial trigger, Remy willingly wrapped his arms around the chest crushing guilt that accompanied Simon's seeming destruction, taking it into himself. His plans, his encouragement had lead them to the bitter showdown that had damaged Anna and broken Simon into infinite irretrievable pieces. He couldn't face it yet, couldn't yet feel the enormity of it all, but he owed Wanda.

"You hear anything from Pietro?" he asked her instead. _Coward,_ his conscience hissed from somewhere deep inside. The Witch's eyes softened at the mention of her brother's name.

"Yes, he called last night. He and Lorna were concerned with how your former boss would take the destruction of his airplane, but apparently Snow had a great deal of insurance on the jet…" _Of course he did_, Remy sighed ruefully over his coffee cup. Both fully recovered from the injuries received courtesy of their father, Wanda's siblings had returned to Serval Industries in hopes of smoothing things over with Harrison Snow, but Remy had simply sent a letter of resignation. He had more important things to deal with than being at the beck and call of a corporation. "I think Lorna will miss you, Remy, but I honestly think Pietro will miss you much more." Remy sputtered and nearly dribbled hot coffee down the front of his shirt, the splash landing on the spotless counter.

"Didn't know you were such a comedian, cherie," he raised an eyebrow and mopped up the spill with a paper towel.

"Laugh all you want, but it's true. I know my brother better than anyone. His powers cause him to bore quite easily when dealing with the majority of people. From what I have observed, you manage to keep him on his toes." Remy raised his mug.

"Praise indeed." To avoid an awkward silence, Wanda kept the chit-chat going.

"Anna Marie is looking quite well."

"Yeah. Docs say she should be out of the infirmary in a couple more days." Not soon enough in his book. He was grateful to have her case handled by some of the best in the business, he was just ready to get her out of here, get her home to the X-Men where she belonged. _Home. 'Bout time we both figured out where that is…_ "That was very sweet of you, cherie, to go and visit her." Wanda swallowed and shook her head.

"I'm sorry, you misunderstood. I didn't visit her in the infirmary, I ran into her and Logan on my way back from delivering breakfast to my father." Remy's eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

"Come again?" Surely he hadn't heard her right.

"I saw them this morning, a little bit ago actually. I just settled down with my coffee after getting back from taking my father breakfast in his cell. Rogue and Wolverine had been waiting in the hallway after our morning…chat." Wanda sighed deeply and looked away, dejected. _Fuck!_ Remy slammed his mug on the counter so loudly the Witch jumped.

"Sorry." He ran a hand roughly through his chin length hair, his mind racing. He was gonna _kill_ Logan. "Excuse me, please." He mumbled another apology to Wanda and bolted from the room as quickly as his injured leg would allow, moving as fast as he dared without looking like a crazed, desperate lunatic. He was gonna kill Logan, really kill him. He thought they had seen eye to eye on this, thought that they were in total agreement. They had decided to do their best to run interference, to keep Anna away from Magneto until she had recovered more of her strength. The injuries the Master of Magnetism had inflicted on her hadn't been life threatening, at least not to her, but were nevertheless serious and traumatic. Simon had been wrenched from her body, his energized cells forced through the very pores of her skin. She had regained consciousness only a few days ago, her body covered in thousands of tiny bruises that made even the smallest movements excruciatingly painful. She was too weak to walk, though she tried anyway, her stubbornness requiring a near constant vigil from Remy and Logan to prevent her from pushing herself too hard and causing further injury. They had also worked hard to keep her out of the hopeless legal and moral nightmare surrounding Magneto.

The Avenger's mansion had become a place of chaos since their arrival, accusations flying between the heroes and SHIELD as each organization scrambled to find Magneto's inside man and argued about what to do with the villain next, each claiming jurisdiction. The day was coming when he would pay for his crimes, but every government in the world was lining up to take first crack, threatening to come and take him if a decision did not come soon. Humans had once attempted to punish Magneto on the world stage, and though it was before his time as an X-Man, Remy remembered how well that had turned out. No one seemed equipped to deal with the threat he had become, no one willing to make the tough decision. Remy didn't know what the right answer was, and knew his own anger clouded his judgement. Was Magneto too dangerous to exist? The same argument had been made for Wanda herself, for Jean Grey, and Remy knew that both the women, though at times corrupted by the infinite possibilities of their powers, were still worth saving. Was anyone so beyond redemption? If he was, what did that mean for the rest of mutants? Use the argument that his powers made him too dangerous to exist, and it could snowball to a frightening conclusion, mutant registration, sentinels on every corner. Most humans seemed to have already decided his fate, if the sentinel factory that had uncovered was any indication. From the protesters gathered in swarms on every street corner in America, in the world, general consensus was Magneto should be put down like a rabid dog. The heroes were on high alert against any incursions or attacks from foreign powers or homegrown terrorist organizations, the dangers mounting daily. Another reason to get himself and Anna the hell out of there. Anna had been surprisingly tight-lipped about everything they had just gone through, which worried Remy. Never one to hold back an opinion, especially concerning someone she cared, or _had_ cared about, Remy worried at what her silence could mean.

_God damn him_, Remy skidded around a corner and jabbed the elevator button impatiently. He should have known better. Logan had been overly protective of Anna since their return, and for Wolverine that was saying a lot. Remy knew the man was feeling guilty for being unable to lend Anna his malfunctioning healing factor, and suspected Logan was drawing too many parallels to the devastating injuries he once suffered at Magneto's hand. Remy sighed irritably, his temper grating across tired nerves. Logan just couldn't say no to that girl, all she had to do was crook her finger and pout those lips and the big bad Wolverine was putty in her hands, guilty putty.

Fuming by the time the elevator reached what was essentially the Avengers' prison wing, he staggered inelegantly down the hallway. Through his growing pain and irritation, his still sleepy brain finally processed what Wanda had said in the kitchen. He had heard the Scarlet Witch, but he truthfully hadn't listened to what she had been saying. She had brought her father breakfast. Breakfast. _What was that about?_ Her other siblings had made it very clear they were finished with their father, Lorna making a point of not coming within sight of Magneto, worried he would use her and her powers again, Pietro just as angry and disgusted as ever. _Poor Wanda. Big heart, that one._ Was she trying to make amends, or maybe still trying to get him to plea bargain and take responsibility? Was she trying to enlist his help in recovering Simon? S'pose it was too much to hope the Witch was offering Magneto a poison apple with his bowl of liquefied cheerios.

Rounding the corner, his burning red eyes found Wolverine. Logan, leaning a burly forearm against the holding cell's observation window, turned his head at the sound of Remy's awkwardly angry footsteps. He turned and stepped in front of the entrance, crossing his arms brazenly.

"Get out of my way, Logan," Remy snarled. Logan stared him down.

"Cool it, Cajun. She needed to say her peace." Remy flicked his eyes to the observation window that ran the length of the hallway. The room behind the reinforced glass held a row of cells designed to contain and neutralize super-powered beings. The cells were currently empty, save one. Remy's heart lurched into his throat at the sight. Rogue, her hair pulled back in a braid, her hospital gown covered modestly with a blue striped robe, sat in a wheelchair just outside that occupied cell, angrily jabbing her finger at Magneto. The man was seated and silent, thanks to his broken jaw, behind the cubicle's invisible force field, his face impassive. Remy wanted to chew Logan out, but huffed out a breath, defeated. He couldn't fight them both, Rogue and Wolverine had always been an unstoppable force when they worked together, and Logan was right. If she was ready to say her peace, she was ready to say her peace, and god forgive anyone who stood in her way.

"She's fine," Logan said low as the two of them shifted to stand directly in front of the glass. "He hasn't done anything out of line, though she's been giving it to him with both barrels. I'll step in if I need to, but you know she wasn't going to let this drop." Remy frowned. No wonder she had been so quiet about it. She had been planning a way to have her say without Remy's interference. _Damned heightened senses_. Why did Logan get to eavesdrop on what was going on in there?

"Cheater," he mumbled, but Logan just shrugged.

"If she wants you to know what she said to him, she'll tell you. Ain't my place. Pretty sure they're not friends anymore, in case you were worried."

A triumphant smiled played at Remy's lips despite the tension and Logan nodded in agreement. The further from Rogue that Magneto stayed the better. They had both been on the receiving end of Rogue's wrath often enough to recognize the real deal laid out before them. Her face behind the glass held no love, no compassion or lightness twinkled in her lovely green eyes. She was cutting ties and Remy couldn't be happier, though he wished that happiness hadn't come at such a high price. Not long ago he had let Rogue go to Magneto to get him out of her system, suspecting her long held expectations of the man would never live up to the reality. Remy just wished that it hadn't taken Anna getting hurt to prove his point, wished truthfully that there had never been a point to prove in the first place.

"Do me a favor, Cajun," Logan's voice rumbled with the echoes of countless cigars. "She's gonna be hurting, she's gonna need to heal more than just those bruises. Take her away from all this for a while. Help her remember there's a world out there worth fighting for." Logan companionably gripped Remy's shoulder and squeezed, the closest Remy had ever gotten to affection from the rugged Wolverine.

"You got it." He turned his eyes back to Rogue. _Take her to New Orleans until she's healed, nurse her back to health, then Paris or somewhere tropical, hell we could get lost for years just touring all of the houses Anna's foster mother Irene left her in her will._ They could find each other again. But, one step at a time. Logan was right, she was going to be a long time healing, body and soul. For now, he'd settle for her being able to dress herself, not that he minded helping her slip in and out of her gown. Behind the glass, an irritated Rogue tugged absently at the tail of her braid, her auburn and white hair twined together in a thick rope that draped over her shoulder. Remy blinked. The girl couldn't even raise her arms over her head she was in so much pain. How had she managed…?

"Did you…braid her hair?" A grin split his face as he turned to Logan.

"We're having a nice moment here," Logan warned, "don't make me hurt you." Rogue twisted her head to them and turned the wheelchair towards the entrance. Her face was beet red and her eyes were rimmed with the same shade. "She's done." Logan jumped to the door faster than Remy could hope to move. He opened it with a four digit code that the thief in Remy noted and cataloged. _Old habits die hard_. Logan motioned for Remy to stay put and moved to wheel Rogue out.

Remy took one last glance at the man who had nearly cost him everything he held dear. Magneto's face was ashen, his eyes dead. _That's all he is, dead inside, damaged_. A broken man who cared only for himself and had systematically ruined or destroyed anyone and everyone who had ever cared for him, who had given nothing to those who loved him but destruction and pain. Remy would give Anna more, would give her everything he had: his heart, his soul, his life.

"You're up early, sugar," Anna was suddenly sunshine when her eyes met his, his presence ice to her fiery anger. He bent low and softly kissed across her salty cheek, found her lips with his, reveled in the feeling.

"All right, all right," an impatient Logan pushed the chair forward. "Are we done here?" Rogue raised her chin proudly, her eyes filled with love.

"You're goddamn right we're done." Her words were music to Remy's ears.

An ending, though Remy knew in his heart of hearts it was only the beginning. Whatever came next, they would weather it together, and that was all that mattered to him.

**The End**


End file.
